


Ashenvale Adventures

by Aronim



Series: Running with Your Elders [1]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 19:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4274469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aronim/pseuds/Aronim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was inspired, vaguely, from my original WoW characters. It developed very much beyond that though. It's a cross-post from fanfiction.net. but I'm interested to see if anyone here enjoy this and if you have any interesting feedback. Hit me with what you think. The first chapters here are kinda old though, but don't let that stop you from criticizing or praising. </p>
<p>I hope you'll enjoy.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired, vaguely, from my original WoW characters. It developed very much beyond that though. It's a cross-post from fanfiction.net. but I'm interested to see if anyone here enjoy this and if you have any interesting feedback. Hit me with what you think. The first chapters here are kinda old though, but don't let that stop you from criticizing or praising. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy.

Ashenvale adventures

First Meeting

The wind blew gently through the forest, rustling leaves and stirring the undergrowth. The sound mingled with the soft murmur of animals and the crystal chiming of the wisps, blue spirit-lights circling the majestic trees of Ashenvale. The air was crisp after a cold night and the dew-covered grass shone in the early morning light. In a small clearing, lay the corpse of a great bear. A large, muscular figure stood beside it, breathing heavily. He was covered from head to hoof in brown leather and dull plate and mail. His neck and head was uncovered, showing his scarred, white furred muzzle and the two deadly, forward-pointing horns sprouting from his temples. In his three-fingered hands the tauren held a large, round steel shield and a bloodied mace. Strapped to his back was a huge, black, two-handed axe.

Maurus Ragetotem knelt, muttering a prayer of respect to the bear's spirit and putting away his weapons, before taking out a knife and methodically skinning the giant beast. The hunt had been a good one and the confrontation worth remembering. The bear had fought bravely. His shield was dented and his armor had gotten some hefty scars in the battle. His hands moved almost on their own as he worked on the bear. The battle rage was already fading, and his muscles relaxed as his mind turned towards the forest.

Once more he marveled at the majesty of these enormous, beautiful and untamed woodlands. It was really no wonder the night elves were so opposed to the encroachment of the Horde on their ancestral lands. Maurus could easily understand their aggravation at the Horde cutting down these trees for lumber. Being here, surrounded by nature in its entire wild splendor, the tauren felt content, a feeling he rarely felt in the bustle of towns and cities.

His reverie was broken by something moving noisily through the forest, loudly snapping twigs and crunching leaves underfoot. Carefully standing and taking out his axe, Maurus turned to face the direction of the sound, noting that the creature was apparently coming right at him.

A moment passed and then a humanoid figure with red fur, cloven hooves and large, slightly curled horns pushed his way out of the bushes. Frantically looking over his shoulder, the satyr failed to notice the tauren and ran straight into him. Having braced for the collision, Maurus barely moved, unlike the satyr, who fell flat on his back and only then turned his head in the direction of the tauren.

The satyr's face was a mask of terror, complete panic in his eyes.

" _But not directed at me_ ," Maurus thought, placing a hoof on the satyr's chest, cracking ribs and stopping his frantic attempt to get up. The satyr grimaced in pain and the expression of fear was replaced by one of momentary confusion as he seemed to gather his wits. Then the fearful look came back as he finally noticed the tauren standing on his chest. Putting all his weight on the satyr's chest, Maurus swiftly ended the satyr's life, stomping his face in with the other hoof.

Spitting in disgust, Maurus stepped off the gory mess of the corrupted creature to search him for any valuables. Before he could do that though, he noticed the shouts of other satyrs, an odd growl and a smooth, female voice chanting incomprehensibly. Leaving the bear and the dead satyr behind, he sprinted towards the sound of battle.

He rushed through a wall of wet leaves and sparse undergrowth before coming out into a clearing alive with the sounds of battle. He quickly took in the scene. One unarmed satyr was rolling on the ground at the far side of the battle, screaming and trying to put out the flames that enveloped him. Behind the burning satyr stood another, strangely insubstantial and very angry-looking, its ineffectual weapons held at its sides. A third satyr, a warlock apparently, was desperately fending off a red, horned doglike thing, while another, smaller one with two wickedly curved blades walked forward with rigid, pained movements. The target of their aggression was a blonde elf, who was moving backwards, chanting gibberish while moving her arms in complicated patterns.

The thing that Maurus focused on though was the satyr sneaking up on the elf, a black blade in each hand and a completely oblivious target in front of him. Bellowing a war cry, Maurus charged the satyr, startling both him and the elf.

Not taken completely by surprise, the satyr dropped to his back, narrowly evading the sweeping axe and rolling to the side, dodging the downward stroke as well as nicking the tauren's leg. Pulling something out of a pouch at his waist, the satyr threw it at the ground in front of Maurus, a flash and a puff of smoke temporarily blinding the tauren. Jumping away from the elf to avoid hitting her, Maurus swung the axe around blindly, the weapon slicing nothing but air. Before his vision returned, Maurus felt a weight land on his back and the next moment he was roaring in pain as the satyr stabbed him.

Reacting on instinct alone, Maurus dropped to his back, feeling and hearing several of the satyr's bones crack as he was crushed between Maurus' massive bulk and the ground. Maurus rolled off the crippled creature and then brought down his axe, separating the head from the body with a meaty thwack and a spray of blood.

At the edge of his returning vision he noticed the dog tearing out the satyr warlock's throat and the burning satyr lying completely still. Then he suddenly felt the strength seep from his body. Looking up from the headless corpse, he saw a newly arrived satyr frantically gesticulating, summoning fire between his hands. Dropping the now too heavy axe, Maurus rolled to the side, feeling a searing heat as his left shoulder caught fire. Rolling further he smothered the worst of the fire, and got to his hooves again, pulling out his knife and throwing it clumsily at the damnable warlock. The knife flew through the air, startling the satyr as it narrowly missed him. The light around his hands went out as he lost concentration, before he hurriedly launched into another spell.

Maurus charged, pulling out his mace and dropping his shield. An ominous, wailing tone, a blaring of some hellish horn, rolled through the clearing and the shadows under the trees came alive, writhing and twisting like snakes. The warlock radiated menace, his eyes aglow with witch-fire, and the darkness in the trees seemed to move at his command. Sheer terror made Maurus falter, almost stopping, before he focused on his pain and rage, drowning the fear. And suddenly the shadows shrank back from the clearing and the warlock seemed to shrink and became as small and unassuming as the other satyrs. He threw a bolt of darkness at Maurus that numbed his left arm when he couldn't dodge completely, but Maurus barreled through the attack and then Maurus was upon the warlock, swinging his mace with all his strength, breaking the satyr's left arm. Grabbing the satyr's horn with his deadened left arm, Maurus pulled viciously, almost tripping the warlock and opening his back for another blow, which broke the satyr's spine. Then Maurus dropped his opponent and smashed his head with a swing of the mace.

Burned and bleeding badly, he turned and found to his surprise that a satyr was lying on the ground behind him, twitching and grimacing in pain. From the prone satyr, a glowing purple beam stretched to the outstretched hand of the elf, where a dark, pulsating crystal was forming. At the exact moment the satyr went still, the shard solidified and the elf packed it away. Behind her were the rest of the satyrs, all burned, painfully contorted or a gory messes from the attention of her "dog".

For the first time, Maurus got at good look at the elf. Dressed, like most of her kin, in blood red robes with golden edges, she held a black staff topped with a rough crystal at the top, which seemed to glow with a green fire. The same fire seemed to play in her eyes, green as in all blood elves. Her blonde hair was sensibly gathered in a ponytail, keeping it out of her eyes. Her bare arms, especially her hands, were covered in straight scars. Some were faded to almost nothing and others looked like they had only just healed.

She stood with her head held high and her scars borne proudly. Both her pride and her combat prowess was worthy of respect, even if she was one of the magic-addicted blood elves.

The battle haze slowly lifted, making Maurus notice the throbbing in his blistered left shoulder and his agonizing stab wound. He also noticed the sticky feeling of blood trickling down his back. The pain momentarily made him stagger and he ended kneeling, looking at the dead satyr on the ground.

"Well, I suppose I should thank you for your assistance, tauren," the elf said somewhat grudgingly.

"Glad to help," Maurus answered, lifting his head "anyone honorable would have…" he continued, stopping when he noticed the green glowing rock the elf was holding just under his nose. Breathing in, he gagged at the smell of it.

"What?"

She shrugged: "You're bleeding badly; and burned too, I think. This can take the worst of it".

"What is it?"

"A healing stone," she answered impatiently, moving it back and forth, "it will heal the worst of it. I suggest you take it before I change my mind. It's a long way to safe camps and Ashenvale is crawling with things trying to kill you."

Looking warily at the stone, he accepted it.

"What do I do with it?"

"You crush it."

He squeezed and the surprisingly frail stone crumbled to dust, the green glow vanishing into his palm. Searing heat burned its way up his arm and spread to his whole body, centering on his blistered shoulder and the stab wound in his back. Both wounds felt like they were pushed into open flame, leaving him breathing heavily for a moment. An intense nausea gripped him and he vomited violently, hitting the dead satyr at his feet.

Head swimming, Maurus noticed that the elf's "dog", standing by the corpse, was a far cry from any natural animal. Besides being blood red, with a skull-like head, it had two hornlike protrusions on the front shoulders and a back covered in black spines. It had claw-like hoofs instead of feet, two weird black, curled things on its back and far too many teeth for Maurus' liking. At the moment it seemed to be growling at him for ruining its lunch. A demon then, which meant that the elf was a warlock.

Standing up, he glared at the elf, who had taken a few steps back and was looking at him with a mix of amusement and disgust.

"You could have warned me," he growled.

The elf cocked her head and smirked.

"It never does that to me. But it did help, didn't it?"

Maurus rolled his shoulders cautiously and realized she was right. His back was still sticky with blood and he was incredibly sore, but he was in no danger of dying from his wounds anymore. They weren't completely healed, but now they were more of an annoyance than a threat or hindrance.

"Thanks."

Then he straightened, bringing his fist to his chest in the traditional Horde salute.

"I, Maurus of the Ragetotem tribe, salute you, fellow member of the Horde."

Surprise flitted briefly across the elf's face, before she mirrored the gesture. Then she smiled, curtsied elaborately and responded in a slightly mocking tone: "Well, I am Arianna Flameweaver, of the Sin'dorei. A pleasure making your acquaintance, Maurus of the Ragetotem Tribe."

Horns sounded in the distance, startling both elf and tauren. As she quickly searched the satyrs' bodies, pocketing a handful of gold and some small trinkets, Arianna spoke urgently: "We need to leave. That's the rest of the search parties responding. I didn't manage to stop them from alarming the others."

She held up a satyr horn, fashioned into a primitive instrument, before shoving it into a backpack she picked up from the ground. Beside the pack lay a mottled green and brown cloak.

Maurus picked up his discarded axe and shield, fastening them onto his back, keeping his mace in his right hand. "How many are there?"

"Too many. At least three more groups like this one," she answered, donning the cloak.

"And at least one is right behind you", Maurus said grimly, eyeing the satyrs cautiously moving into the light.

Spinning around, the warlock spat a command at her demon, which sprinted growling towards the group of satyrs.

Stepping in front of the chanting warlock, Maurus again took out his shield. He had fought with casters before and knew that the advantage of having them with you vanished the moment you let them get dragged into close combat.

Before the new arrivals got any closer though, the clearing lit up as flaming rocks suddenly rained down onto the satyrs and the hound, eliciting shouts of pain and setting the surrounding plants alight. The satyrs scattered, trying to put out their smoldering fur and avoiding the ferocious hound. Maurus stared, dumbfounded. Then the elf's staff smacked into his recently healed shoulder, making him glare at back at Arianna. She simply glared back, stating impatiently: "The rain and the hound won't distract them for long. Run!"

Then she turned and sprinted in the direction Maurus had come from. Acknowledging she was right, he reluctantly turned and followed her, leaving behind the furiously snarling hound and the angry satyrs.


	2. Fury of the Forest

Ashenvale Adventures

Fury of the Forest

Maurus thundered after the elf, entering the clearing where the great, skinned bear still lay. Changing direction slightly, he picked up his backpack from next to the corpse and then followed the elf further into the forest. Arianna moved nimbly through the forest, bent low and not sparing a glance behind her. Maurus, being considerably taller, broader and heavier, loudly crashed through the undergrowth, shield first, occasionally hitting his head on tree branches.

Behind them, shouts and loud movement announced that the satyrs had resumed pursuit. More ominous though, was the fact that the deep blaring horns were quickly coming much closer. Judging from the different calls, at least four groups were closing in from the sides.

Jumping over a large root, Maurus bumped against a tree, almost missing a step. Catching himself before he stumbled, he plunged on, cursing under his breath. At least the elf wasn't leaving him behind. Though quick and agile, she was obviously not at home in the woods. It was only thanks to her small body and quick reflexes that she hadn't tripped, thus losing them their head start.

A horn sounded to their left, much closer than any of the others. Arianna cast a quick glance towards the sound and then changed direction to move away from that group. Another horn sounded to their right, apparently not much closer than it was before.

It didn't sound like the group behind them was gaining on them. As the satyrs were native to these forests, Maurus would have expected them to quickly catch up. Then the group behind them blew their horn and the tauren focused on running. Again a horn sounded on their left, but this time slightly further ahead of them. Turning further to the right, the pair pushed on, breathing heavily. Running at full speed through the dense forest, uphill even, was starting to take its toll on them.

Horns now sounding behind them and on both sides of them, the elf and the tauren moved through thinning foliage, open ground visible up ahead. Bursting out of the trees, the pair took a couple more steps before frantically skidding to a halt. In front of them, the flat ground fell away into a very steep slope, leading down to a wide, forested valley. Maurus felt his heart sink as he heard blaring horns closing in on all sides. Standing at the very edge of the slope, the pair turned around to see satyrs moving in all around them, cruel smiles adorning most of their faces. The few not smiling were scorched and bloody and their snarls were directed solely at Arianna.

"Damn it! How did you piss off so many satyrs?" Maurus whispered through gritted teeth. He counted at least twenty, most of them wielding swords and daggers. A few were marked as warlocks by the simple jewelry they wore and the crude staffs in their hands, pale imitations of the one Arianna wielded.

"Not now," the elf snapped. Her eyes darted left and right, desperately looking for a way out. Maurus glanced down the slope, then back at the satyrs. They seemed to have planned for this situation and were now cautiously moving forward. The warlocks had spread out among the other satyrs, apparently moving into specific positions in the combat formation.

As the warlocks began chanting, Maurus reached a decision, slung his arm around Arianna and jumped down the slope, dragging the elf with him. He could feel the spells' dark, corrupt energy narrowly missing him before he was out of sight. The elf and the tauren half tumbled, half skidded down the slope, Maurus doing his best to let him and his shield take the worst of it. Halfway down the slope they entered the trees and undergrowth of the valley, which shielded them from the satyr warlocks.

Bruised, battered and bleeding they reached the bottom of the slope. Maurus got to his hooves and turned, only to find Arianna already standing, looking slightly dazed but uninjured. Glancing up the slope, he realized it had been a terribly risky gamble taking that route. The slope was even steeper than he had realized and littered with rocks and small trees. It was pure dumb luck that they had survived the fall, and even more miraculous that they hadn't broken any limbs. Arianna followed his gaze. "We should keep moving. They probably think we're dead, but they're going to come down to check." Maurus grunted in agreement and they set off again.

A while later Maurus ground out: "Slow down."

The response was prompt: "No, we need to put as much distance as we can between us and them. It's not my fault you can't keep up in all that metal".

Maurus grabbed the warlock's shoulder with a large, armored hand and stopped, jerking the blood elf to a rough stop. Spinning her around, he growled: "We don't need to keep up this pace. You see those?"

He pointed to a couple of trees behind them, where bundles of bones, skulls, feathers and antlers had been lashed together with lengths of rope and string. More of the grisly collections could be glimpsed further away, hanging like strange fruit from the trees.

"Yes", the elf spat irritably, "what's so important about the crude art of the denizens of Ashenvale?"

"They're furbolg markers. They mark the edges of their territory. And they're  _quite_  territorial." As he spoke, Maurus began dragging Arianna further past the markers into the furbolg territory. The elf resisted, but Maurus dragged her along effortlessly.

"Wait, if they're so territorial, why are we going into the area? We don't need crazed bear-men to further complicate this!"

The warrior walked cautiously forward, walking as fast as possible without making too much noise. "They mostly patrol the outer areas", he said quietly. "If we're lucky we can slip through. Furbolgs hate demons and their ilk and the satyrs know this. So I doubt they will actually follow us in here."

At that comment, Arianna stopped resisting and began walking beside the tauren. Maurus removed his hand, glanced at her and smirked slightly. "Unless whatever you did pissed them of so badly that you think they'd risk provoking an entire tribe of easily enraged furbolgs," he added.

Arianna rubbed the shoulder the tauren had grabbed. "I doubt they are that desperate to catch me." She matched his smirk. "Shielding our escape from one group of insane forest dwellers by running into the arms of another. Very devious. And it is at least a little more than jumping down an almost sheer drop."

"Well, we're not dead yet," Maurus grumbled, "now try to be quiet and use your eyes and those ears."

She glared at him again but didn't answer and they pressed on in silence. A couple of times the warlock picked up the sounds of movement and each time they hid as best they could. At no point did they spot any of the patrols, but Maurus didn't question the elf's superior hearing. Noon came and went as they moved carefully through the forest. They were well into the afternoon before they saw any of the bears. Moving around a particularly dense patch of trees, they suddenly found themselves just a few feet from a large, grey furbolg. Like most furbolgs, he wore a loincloth, leather bracers and numerous cords, decorated with carved stones and bone, hung around his neck. On his head he had a leather headdress, decorated with feathers and small bird skulls.

He was kneeling on the ground, apparently interrupted in his task of carefully uprooting a jagged, purple flower. Beside him lay a dark, wooden staff topped with green stones. The three stood frozen for a long moment. Then the furbolg snarled and a grassy green glow appeared around his hands. Arianna immediately started casting as well.

As Maurus drew his axe, both casters finished their spells in quick succession. Thick vines burst from the ground, wrapping themselves tightly around Maurus' legs up to his thighs. Arianna's spell sent the furbolg fleeing in blind terror. Cursing in his native language, Maurus furiously hacked at the roots holding him in place. The warlock quickly turned around, murmuring the words of a spell. The spell scorched the vines, making them brittle and Maurus tore himself free with a grunt of pain. The flame hadn't just burnt the roots.

"Well, I guess that's it for stealth then," Arianna sighed. Her ear twitched. "The druid's coming back. With friends. Lots of them."

"At least we got a couple of hours of rest," Maurus replied wryly, putting away his axe again. He took the lead and they began running.

This chase was different. There were no horns blowing, and the furbolgs moved noisily through the forest, more akin to Maurus' clumsy run than the satyrs' elf-like lope. " _At least the pursuers are not raving, demonic satyr, merely pissed of bears,"_ Maurus thought.

"We mean you no harm, we're just passing through!" Maurus yelled between breaths. The only response was enraged growling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the elf roll her eyes at him.

"Worth a try," he ground out.

They raced through the forest, the sound of heartbeats mingling with the shouts and growls from behind them and the sound of the world around them. They dodged trees, crashed through bushes and jumped and stumbled over the uneven ground. Maurus felt a jolt of pain and heard a shout of: "Left, now!" Moving without thinking, he only narrowly dodged a green glowing bolt of energy flying through the air where he'd just been. His momentary annoyance that the elf had hit him with her staff  _again_  faded instantly at the sight. He grinned at the elf, who merely turned her attention forward again.

A few moments later the warlock excitedly pointed forward. Maurus breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the telltale skulls and feathers indicating the outer edges of the furbolgs' domain.

The pair sped up, moving past the markers. Almost immediately the sound of their pursuers' crashing through the forest ceased and the furbolgs half shouted, half roared as they gave up pursuit. Among the growls, Maurus thought he picked out the shaman adding, in a heavy accent: "Keep running and don't come back!"

A while later, Maurus and Arianna stopped. Maurus stood, hands on his knees, trying to get his rapid breathing under control. Opposite him, the elf likewise tried to catch her breath, sitting leaned against a tree.

Finally out of danger, Maurus let the calming sound of the forest wash over him, enjoying the distant sound of animals, wisps and the loud creaking of the trees. If only the wind had blown, cooling the warm afternoon air, he would have been satisfied. And if he didn't have that nagging feeling that he was forgetting something.

"So," Arianna began, "you think we're done running headlong into danger yet?"

"Maybe. Hopefully," Maurus breathed.

"Could we please go on then?" the warlock continued, sounding bored. "I'm quite sure you're more familiar with the area and we might actually be able to go somewhere civilized if we take the time to think about where we're going. Provided this forest doesn't kill us first."

"North," Maurus grunted, pointing behind him, "Ashenvale Road, it'll lead us straight to Splintertree Post." Maurus raised his head. "And the forest isn't trying to kill us anymore than-" Maurus trailed off. " _Wait, forest trying to kill us…"_

And then everything happened very quickly. Maurus felt the blood drain from his face, even as he began moving forward. "Very noisy this forest isn't… it," the elf said, looking up, her expression changing from boredom to alarm even as Maurus grabbed her ankle and pulled. With a sound trees groaning and branches breaking, a gnarled, ivy-covered hand moved almost sluggishly, crashing into the ground where Arianna had just sat mere seconds before.

Maurus heaved the annoyed elf further back, grasping for her arm with his free hand. Pulling her to her feet and almost throwing her behind him, the tauren got a look at their huge attacker.

What the tauren had assumed to be a couple of trees, growing very close to each other was now pulling its hand out of the ground. It was around twenty-five feet tall and now that it moved, he could see that what had looked like the crown of the tree, actually looked more like a beard and hair made out of leaves, almost obscuring its face and shoulders. More foliage covered its two legs, making it look like they consisted of smaller trees and bushes surrounding two solid trunks.

The contours of a face could clearly be seen through the dense cover of leaves. A hooked nose of a branch stuck out from the foliage and two large, emerald eyes glared balefully down at him. The two arms were almost as long as the entire walking tree. The thing creaked and cracked like a forest in a storm and with a roar like the sound of a colossal tree falling, the giant treant lashed out with its other hand.

Maurus had already half-turned to run when he was hit. The blow lifted him into the air and sent him crashing into the trees ahead. Trying to take the worst of it by throwing his arms in front of him did little and the tauren felt sharp pain and then saw only darkness.

* * *

 

"Maurus!"

Something hit his cheek, hard, bringing faint pain.

"Stupid cow, wake up!"

A frustrated grunt and mumbled gibberish, followed by sharp, burning pain at his neck, made Maurus open his eyes, wondering why he lay face down in earth and trees. A sharp tug at his arm made him get up and follow the curious little, pointy-eared thing dragging him along. Behind him, a tree creaking and crackling managed to sound both desperate and angry. Something was burning, or at least smoldering.

He began to turn, in order to figure out what was on fire, but he was interrupted by slap and an angry admonishing: "No! Now we run, he won't take long to put out the fire."

Glaring at the blonde, pointy-ear, he nonetheless followed her, ignoring the noise behind them, even though it sounded like the very forest was furious.

"Just do as I say for now," the blonde continued.

A couple of seconds later she looked back at the sound of breaking branches. She gasped, pulled sharply on him and shouted the direction: "Left!"

Following, Maurus felt the ground shake, and looked back to see a huge rock, the size of his torso, lying in a crater that had appeared in the spot they had been in mere moments ago. A couple more rocks followed, of varying size, but the pair managed to dodge all of them and soon the projectiles stopped coming and the roaring of the forest died behind them.

Maurus ran, clumsily, stumbling often, but managing a brisk jog. As they ran, his clouded head began to clear and he noticed the grumbling elf was still dragging him along like an unruly dog. Though he couldn't quite understand what the elf was saying, he was sure it wasn't flattering. She seemed to notice that his movements were getting smoother though. Shaking his arm free of the elf's grasp, he grunted: "Fine now. Thanks."

"Good, then I don't have to drag you along like a kid," she said between breaths.

Maurus huffed. "Injury to the head, it happens," he ground out. "Especially when you need to protect small frail casters from huge treants. Without me, you'd be a smear on the ground by now."

"And you would be a smear on the ground several times over if it wasn't for me," the blood elf retorted. "So are we going to get to the main road before we run into more catastrophes?"

Maurus stopped, took a deep breath, and then looked carefully around him.

"Could we please keep moving? Every time we stop it seems something attacks us and I really don't want to die today."

"Just getting my bearings. Where did we run when the treant attacked?" Maurus said, still looking around carefully.

"More or less the direction you pointed, I'm guessing that was north," the elf answered, looking around for any trace of a threat.

Maurus frowned in confusion for a moment. He didn't remember pointing anywhere. Then the tauren shrugged and set off, waving for Arianna to follow. The elf matched his pace and they ran, determined not to let anything get in the way of them and the relative safety of the Ashenvale Road.

"Wait, why is it you have to ask me to show the way all the time?"


	3. Splintertree Scuffle

Ashenvale Adventures

Splintertree Scuffle

The Ashenvale Road ran from Darkshore in the northwest to Azshara in the east. Because a truce still officially existed between the Horde and the Alliance and because Ashenvale was plagued by several other, more obviously malign factions, the road had been declared truly neutral ground, regularly patrolled by both Alliance and Horde. Travelers of both factions used the road regularly, though members of the Horde used one of the branching roads to avoid Astranaar, while Alliance members always took a detour to avoid Splintertree post and the Warsong lumber camp.

The treatment the various patrols gave travelers of the opposite faction was not exactly friendly, and was generally wholly dependent on the attitude of the officer in charge. However, the constant threat of running into the patrols of the opposite party kept any of the more hostile patrols from doing anything worse than mild harassment. Skirmishes still occurred, but never on the road. Hostilities were mostly confined to Warsong Valley.

As such, the road was generally one of the safest places to be in Ashenvale, other than the outposts and settlements of the appropriate faction. It was also the quickest way to move through the forest, being a rather wide, well-maintained brick road.

"So, you're completely unfamiliar with Ashenvale?" Maurus asked, walking onto the road, feeling an immense relief as he felt the weathered stone under his hooves. He was confident in his strength and his ability to survive in the wilds, but after he had met the warlock the problems had just kept coming. He was bruised, battered and more than a little nauseous even though it had been hours since his rough introduction to that tree trunk. For now he was happy to have reached the relative safety of the road.

"I've never really learned the layout, no," Arianna answered, stepping onto the road beside him. "I came through tunnels from Stonetalon Mountains," she continued, sounding resigned. Maurus kept a triumphant smile from his face. She had been avoiding answering that question with incredible stubbornness.

The elf obviously didn't take the same comfort as Maurus in being on the road, only relaxing slightly and looking suspiciously up and down the road.

"Relax; the road is one of the safest places in Ashenvale."

"We're sitting ducks. Feels very safe," the warlock muttered crossly, though some of the tension in her posture vanished.

"Compared to moving through Alliance or furbolg territory, this is as good as walking through Thunderbluff," Maurus responded. "And it's the fastest way."

They had kept up a fast jog through the forest, mostly to reduce time spent in unsafe territory. Though not terribly injured, they would be at a disadvantage against any organized enemy.

Now they simply walked in silence. Maurus felt ill and wondered how bad his concussion was. He should probably see a healer. Being punched by a tree into a tree couldn't have done the rest of his body any favors either. He was also mildly annoyed that the elf had burned his neck! It didn't help that he couldn't really be upset with the elf. She had saved him by doing that. From what he understood, she had actually set the treant on fire and then saved him when she could just have escaped alone.

That thought cheered him up. At least she had honor.

The elf at his side was already starting to bruise. Much of her pale skin was beginning to turn an ugly purplish-red. She also seemed to favor her left leg. Not that she let the pain show on her face though. Her expression was a mixture of determination and irritation.

"Why are you limping?" Maurus asked.

"Because I was yanked six feet by my ankle," she answered venomously. "Though," she amended, tone softening slightly, "the alternative would have been worse. Never mind. How long till we reach Splintertree post?"

"If we keep up this pace, probably by tomorrow evening." Maurus frowned slightly. "We can slow down if you aren't in a hurry," he mused.

She looked at him contemptuously, sped up slightly, and then answered "Just try to keep up, unless your brain got too shaken up by that Ancient."

"Ancient?"

"Ancient Protector, the thing that nearly crushed us?"

"I thought they were just a big treants," Maurus answered.

"They're not. They're ancient avatars of the forest, in pact with the night elves", Arianna said, sounding like she was quoting something. "Didn't think they actually existed though", she added thoughtfully.

"Well I knew they were in pact with the night elves. Why do you know of them, if you didn't believe in them?"

"History speaks of them. We blood elves haven't dealt with them for millennia though."

The rest of the day went by in casual conversation, only interrupted by the occasional patrol or traveler. Apparently the Ancients had played a large part in much of the elves history, though the blood elves had for some reason no relation to them anymore. Though Arianna wasn't specific on time and names, Maurus' mind boggled at the sheer scale of time she hinted at. True, the tauren race was ancient as well, but their sense of time was vaguer, more fluid. The tauren legends and sense of history was more about lessons and patterns. The elves seemed to view their history as a rigid line, every major event and name doggedly remembered and preserved for the ages.

Maurus contributed thoughts and bits of tauren culture on occasion, but he mostly let Arianna talk, trying to follow the elf's story. The tauren was vaguely amused that the warlock seemed oddly cheerful while she delivered something akin to a stern lecture.

At nightfall they set up camp. After they built the fire and ate, Arianna got up and placed a familiar dark crystal in front of her. Maurus watched, mildly curious, as the warlock weaved her arms in complex patterns and chanted long, strange sentences, barely pausing for breath. The words, alien and guttural, filled the tauren with a strange unease. As the ritual reached its end, the elf took out a small knife and nonchalantly cut across her forearm, letting the blood drip onto the crystal. The crystal glowed bright purple, then shattered, the purple light falling to the ground like liquid before darkening and rising up into a vague, black four-legged shape. The flickering shadow sharpened, before color bled into it. A moment later, the hellhound moved and growled.

The warlock knelt a little unsteadily in front of the hound and allowed it to lick the blood on her arm. Then she sat at the fire again as if nothing happened, clasped her hands around the glowing orb at the top of her staff and closed her eyes. The hound settled beside her like a regular dog, making a horrifying imitation of a purr.

Maurus eyed the demon warily from across the fire. It seemed to look right back at him, and he couldn't shake the feeling that it just might leap right across the fire to tear out his throat. " _Besides, why do I even think fire will shield me? The demons are from the Burning Legion,"_ Maurus thought gloomily.

The elf inhaled sharply, then let out a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. Putting the staff at her side, she noticed the way Maurus regarded her pet.

"My felhunter's name is Gzaashon. I call him Ash for short and ease of pronunciation. And he won't bite; he's had his fill for today."

Maurus grimaced. "The blood offering?" he asked, not quite able to hide the disgust in his voice.

Arianna narrowed her eyes. "Yes. And the satyr and a half he had this morning," she said coldly. "It's not like it's wrong to make sacrifice in exchange for service," she added. "From what I've heard, shamans and druids also sacrifice to the spirits of nature and hunters often strengthen their bond with their animal companions by way of some sort of sacrifice. I really don't see the problem."

Maurus averted his eyes, staring into the fire. She was right that many spiritual paths used sacrifice. But there was a difference.

"But demons are not natural beings, nor neutral like the spirits or animals of our world," Maurus countered after a moment's thought, raising his head again.

"First," the warlock replied testily, holding up one finger, "a lot of the demons are natural beings from other worlds. Second," she continued, unfolding another finger, "the demons I summon are, if nothing else, creatures bound by contracts. They honor these above everything else. Third," she was now holding up three fingers, "they do not taint me in any way during the summoning, as all sacrifice I make to them is consumed, not stored for some later influence by blood-link or whatever you think. And no, I have  _not_  sold my soul to dark powers. People ought to know that that would be monumentally stupid."

"That sounds like an awfully convenient deal you've got then," Maurus replied skeptically.

"Nothing convenient about it. It's a mutually beneficial deal. I get various services, they get their chance to kill, maim, eat and corrupt. As I don't actually let anything they corrupt live, I don't see the problem." There was a note of finality in the last sentence. The warrior wasn't convinced, but let the matter drop.

The silence stretched on for a while, before Maurus broke it again: "Wait, you said that, "Maurus hesitated for a moment, " _Ash_  had eaten satyrs earlier today. Is that the same as the one you left to die?"

"Yes. That's the beauty of demons. They obey any order, even suicidal ones, both because they have to and because they merely lose their form in this world."

"So their ability to be summoned and sacrificed again and again gives you unlimited pawns?"

"Yes technically," the elf answered curtly. "But that doesn't mean I send them to their deaths for my amusement. I have no desire to see them needlessly hurt, but a part of the contract is complete loyalty. And they  _are_  here to help and protect me."

Again Maurus averted his eyes, this time looking at the demon. It seemed perfectly content next to the warlock, no injuries that he could see. Still, he couldn't help but find the cold logic a little disconcerting. He understood sacrifice; he could name some things he'd give his life for. But to be sacrificed again and again, to feel the pain of death untold times seemed horrible. Even if it was demons it happened to, the thought of the experience was horrifying.

"I think you have disapproved of my methods enough for one night, don't you? We should sleep. Don't worry about watching over the camp, Ash can handle it. I'll give him strict orders so you can feel safe."

The elf gave him a mocking smile, muttered a string of commands to the demon in that strange tongue and laid down to rest. A few minutes later, she seemed asleep, judging from her steady breathing.

Maurus wasn't quite so eager to go to sleep, but after a little while, he laid down to sleep. Just for good measure though, he pulled his chainmail further up his neck and put his shield right beside him. He couldn't quite shake the feeling of being exposed and the felhunter moving about just outside the firelight didn't exactly help, but eventually, Maurus fell asleep.

* * *

 

In spite of Maurus' unease, he'd slept like the dead. Seeing as he was walking down Ashenvale road the morning after, his worry had been pointless. The demon wasn't going to kill him in his sleep and the fact that nothing else had either, showed the warrior that the felhunter was a fairly competent guard dog.

They travelled in silence, no danger or disagreements sparking any conversations. Arianna didn't seem to mind, apparently lost in her own thoughts. The demon sprinted back and forth constantly, seemingly completely unaffected by a full night's vigil. It moved with the energy of a hyper-active wolf-pup, a comparison that didn't extend to its other features. The creature apparently sniffing the tree to the side would only be comparable to one of those little bundles of fur if it was seen through the blurry haze only lethal amounts of particularly volatile rum could induce. And it would probably take something more exotic even then.

At noon, as they walked down a narrow part of the road, a low rumbling snapped both of them out of their thoughts. Looking back, they saw a light brown kodo come around a bend in the road, moving toward them with impressive speed, a leather-clad, dark grey tauren riding it. The mounted tauren shouted a deep: "Move it!" even as the warlock and the warrior hurriedly jumped out of the way.

Maurus sent an annoyed glare towards the rider, who merely rode on, seemingly unconcerned. Then the warrior turned to Arianna and, seeing her murderous expression and hearing her taking a very deep breath, quickly clamped a large hand over her mouth, stopping whatever she had been about to utter.

Seeing her shift her glare from the rider to him, Maurus couldn't help but chuckle. His hand easily covered half her face and her protests were quite effectively muffled by his palm. "Calm down, there is no reason to make an enemy of our allies," he said pleasantly.

She responded by biting his palm. The demon, apparently sensing his master's annoyance, began to growl. Maurus let go, mildly amused. The warlock hadn't bit  _that_ hard and his calloused hands were quite resistant to pain. "Even if he is as considerate as a landslide," he added.

The elf, though still looking visibly irritated, conceded his point with a nod. Then she started down the road, complaining half-heartedly about the brutish and simple  _cows_ and the complete lack of elegance, subtlety or any other qualities of their chosen beasts of burden.

The day passed in discussion of kodos, the warlock's rant making Maurus defend the species, informing her of the tremendous practical and legendary importance of the kodos and they arrived at Splintertree Post as the sky faded to dark blue. A grueling talk with jumpy guards only resulted in them being allowed through the gate when an older, female tauren vouched for Maurus.

The guards sent a few, final suspicious glances towards the felhunter as they finally entered the outpost. Enclosed by a very sturdy, wooden wall were a dozen solid buildings that mostly resembled boulders of various sizes, with tiled roofs and a few holes cut into them for entry. Maurus introduced the tauren as Senani Thunderheart, a mentor for many young tauren.

"Pleased to meet you," Senani said, smiling curiously at the little warlock. "I'm a little surprised you bring a live blood elf back when you set out for a dead bear," she added, slightly reproachful, toying idly with one of her long, dark, coarse braids.

"Yeah, well, she seems to bring bad luck. At least that's how it was the first day," Maurus began.

"Yes, yes, it is a very interesting story, but I need to settle some things. If you could point me to the person in charge of the satyr management, I would appreciate it. I leave the joy of explaining the breathtaking story to you," Arianna interrupted.

A few moments and an instruction later, the elf hurried of towards one of the burrows, a solid, mostly round structure of heavy stone and iron.

Senani looked after the elf, her expression darkening. Then she turned back to Maurus, and muttered: "She's a rude one, isn't she?"

Maurus smirked. "She can probably still hear you." He waited a few moments and then continued: "But yes. However, she's got honor and strength, which is more than can be said of some."

The older tauren snorted and walked towards the inn. Like all the other buildings in Splintertree, it was a massive lump of rock, with few openings but the doors and the hole in the top, where faint smoke was escaping into the sky. "I'll believe in honorable warlocks when I see one. Strength from the Nether is at best fickle and dishonorable. A shame you had to give up your hunt to help someone like that. Oh well, you can still hunt the hippogriff or the night saber."

"What? I found the bear before I met the elf," Maurus said, frowning.

"Now, now, you need to bring back proof of such achievements, greenhorn," the elder tauren said, clucking her tongue disapprovingly. "And even worse", she said, opening the door to the Drunk Furbolg Inn and narrowing her eyes at him, "it's dishonorable to take credit for the prey of other hunters."

The heat of the inn hit Maurus like a wall as he entered. They had entered a large, six-sided room, two stories tall. An elevated platform ran along the walls fifteen feet up, creating additional seats from where one could still see down into the main area. A roaring fire burned in the fire pit in the center of the floor, smoke drifting out the open roof. Braziers spread throughout the room added to the heat and smoke, giving the whole inn the parched feel of the Barrens in the afternoon.

The inn was far from full, but a respectable amount of scouts and travelers had gathered inside. Most of them had clustered around the tauren standing on a table by the fire. He had a tankard of ale in one hand and was waving his other hand in a pantomime of a fight. He was apparently telling some story with much enthusiasm.

"That's Bron Stonehoof," Senani supplied. As they neared the gathering, Maurus noticed that the table was covered with a huge bearskin, which had the attention of the few patrons who wasn't looking at Bron. The fur was dark grey, with a purplish tint. A line of light grey went down the back. The same shade of fur gave the bear's face distinctive, scar-like markings over both eyes. The bear's shoulders were each marked with a light grey circle inside a larger circle and a stripe further down and one front paw was marked with a distinctive crescent. It was familiar bearskin. A _very_ familiar bearskin.

Maurus was vaguely aware of Bron acknowledging Senani and him. Senani seemed to be speaking to him now, but he couldn't really hear the words over the roaring in his ears. Then Bron spoke directly to him. The words still escaped him, but the effect was immediate.

"You took my  _prey!_ " Maurus shouted.

The amiable atmosphere evaporated instantly. The crowd around Bron dispersed to other tables, but their attention remained on the taurens. Bron looked momentarily taken aback. Then he put down his beer and smiled.

"Are you sure? There are lots of great bears in Ashenvale and some of them have markings. You might have mistaken-" he managed before Maurus interrupted him again.

"I hunted Ursangous! I have the scars! I said the rites of the hunt! And I used  _this knife_  to skin the mighty bear!" Maurus snarled, planting his skinning knife blade first into the table just in front of the bears head. A few of the onlookers were shrinking back from the table, obviously intimidated.

Bron jumped down from the table and moved forward, waving his hands in a placating gesture.

"You must be mistaken. If you had done all that, wouldn't you have brought the proof home yourself? Why would I have it?"

"Because you stole it when you saw the chance! I saved Horde, while you stole my kill!"

"Hold on, I'm being reasonable here. But I will not ignore the insult of being called a thief again."

"You claim a hunt that's not yours! You  _are_  a dishonorable thief!" Maurus roared, lashing out at the dark grey tauren. As his hand connected with the tauren's chin, he realized this had been the same tauren that had passed Arianna and him on the road. Then Bron struck back, hitting Maurus on the left cheek before kicking him in the knee. Maurus' knee buckled, even as he struck again, this time only grazing the other tauren's shoulder pad. Bron quickly followed up with a knee to the stomach, his armored kneecap winding Maurus even through his chainmail.

Snarling, Maurus launched himself at Bron, keeping his head down to avoid skewering him on his horns and the pair tumbled into the table. The grey tauren responded by giving him an elbow to the top of the head, a kick in the groin and then throwing Maurus of as he crumbled.

Bron got to his hooves and Maurus unsteadily followed. A gentle wind ruffled the grey tauren's fur, the only sound in the room other than breathing and the crackling of the braziers.

"This act isn't going to get you any recognition. Stop this foolishness and leave," Bron snarled.

"You stole my kill!" Maurus growled in response.

Bron charged, his speed catching Maurus by surprise. He landed two solid punches to Maurus' head and a knee to his side before Maurus managed to lash out. Once again, he only barely brushed the other tauren, who continued to pummel him. Bron mostly landed hits to the head but he kept Maurus off-balance with occasional punches and kicks to the legs or less armored parts of the warrior's body. Maurus angrily tried to repay the punishment in kind, but between his dizziness, unstable footing and the blood flowing into his left eye he didn't get many good strikes in.

The fight faded into a blurred haze of defending and blind attacking. Then he had the sensation of being dragged and showed, ending up on cold, damp grass, where he heard a voice growling: "Shut up and don't come back."

He rolled onto his back with a groan and stared into the sky, the pinpoints of stars blurred in his vision. He could taste blood and his entire face, his left side and his knees and shins throbbed painfully. His anger hadn't diminished much, but it was obvious he wasn't going to get anything out of confronting the bastard tauren again. So he lay there, waiting for the strength and inclination to get up.

Then a pale face, with glowing green eyes and a large bruise on the left cheek appeared, upside down, in his vision.

"I thought you told me it wouldn't do to antagonize our allies," Arianna said, raising a long, thin eyebrow. Maurus merely growled in response, the rumble agitating his stomach and making him wince.

"You've gotten well and truly beat up haven't you," she continued nonchalantly, walking around him to stand at his feet. "How come it didn't go that wrong out in the wilds?"

Maurus narrowed his eyes at the elf and grunted: "Unarmed combat, couldn't just kill him. Incredibly fast for a tauren."

"So, two excuses and one legitimate reason for your loss. Are you going to stay there all night and feel sorry for yourself?"

Maurus got to his hooves and glared down at the elf. Then he said, in a very low, growling voice: "I do not feel sorry for myself. I am rightfully furious that he claims honor for defeating a fearsome beast that  _I_  bested!"

"Now, now, I won't say it again. You can't claim honor for a kill you didn't make," a smooth, low voice said coldly. Maurus turned to see Senani moving towards him. She was glaring at him, her arms crossed. Maurus glared right back.

"I did-" he began, only to be interrupted by Senani.

"That's enough. Do you expect anyone to be impressed by that hissy fit? And to believe that he just happened upon your prize while you were conveniently away? Frankly, with that sorry display you put on in there, I have a hard time believing you could best something like Ursangous."

Maurus stared at the older tauren, incredulous. Then his expression turned into a furious scowl.

"We've known each other for years and this is how much faith you have in me? Fine! I'll bring back proof of Sharptalon's demise!" Maurus muttered angrily.

"I'd advise against that," Senani said curtly. "I will ask you to at least cool your head before you foolishly rush to your death. I have arranged with the inn that you are welcome if you can keep your temper under control. The damage has been paid for."

Then she turned and walked away, Maurus glaring at her until she was out of sight.

"So this Bron stole your kill, got all the credit  _and_ beat you to a pulp?" Arianna asked, sounding bored.

"Yes," Maurus snapped.

"I think I'll agree with your friend's advice and say you should wait till you're calmer before doing anything."

"Of course. You think I'd run blindly into the forest screaming for Sharptalon?" Maurus responded.

"Not anymore. But from what I've seen you have a propensity to run into trouble and leaving your back open," Arianna said, her felhunter growling behind him as if to illustrate her point.

They walked into the inn, Maurus relishing in the warmth after lying on the cold grass for a little too long. Though he received some hostile glares, Maurus was largely ignored as they entered the building. The mood was once again pleasant and relaxed and Bron was again the center of attention.

"I see you hurt him too," Arianna muttered. Maurus followed her gaze to the crowd where Bron sat and was slightly surprised to see him looking rather beat up, some swelling and blood visible through the fur. It didn't look nearly as bad as how Maurus felt he looked himself and it didn't seem to bother the grey tauren much, but it seemed the fight hadn't been as one-sided as Maurus had felt.

They got ale and wine from a wary bartender and retreated to a table on the second floor, as far away from Bron as possible. They sat in silence for a while, a fuming Maurus drinking a couple of tankards of ale while Arianna suspiciously looked at her wine.

"So I guess the fancy bear-rug on the table is what the fuss is all about? I bet you wish I had cursed him earlier," Arianna said, cautiously sipping from her glass.

"Yeah. Though we probably wouldn't have known. We wouldn't have killed him, nor taken anything," Maurus said bitterly. Then he emptied half of his most recent tankard, looked at his hands and groaned.

"I fought in a fistfight with steel gauntlets. No wonder I managed to hurt him," Maurus muttered miserably, his rage giving way to shame.

"He's wearing mail and leather. And he's a shaman, I think he'll live," the elf said, sounding slightly annoyed. "Quit complaining about the idiot. Drink, heal, hunt Sharptalon. Then your strength is proven, greyhorn shown up. Problem solved. "

Maurus looked up from his ale, his expression changing from miserable to merely gloomy.

"Besides, shouldn't you be more concerned with what you know about your own strength and honor?" the elf added airily.

Maurus straightened his back properly for the first time since he'd been thrown out of the inn and his lips parted in a feral grin. The elf smirked slightly at him.

"To the hunt," Maurus said, raising his tankard. Arianna raised her glass and echoed: "To the hunt."


	4. Defenders and Demons

Ashenvale Adventures

Defenders and Demons

"Tell me; don't you think you should search the forest and not the middle of the road for Sharptalon?" Arianna asked, sounding rather bored.

"I will search the forest," Maurus answered. "I told you, I'm counting on getting information at the garrison at the bridge to the Felfire Hills."

The elf raised her head, looking slightly less apathetic. "You didn't say we were going to Felfire Hills."

"I'm not. I'm going to the garrison. Sharptalon prowls the surrounding areas from what I've heard. Thought you'd be coming here for the Hills or to continue to Azshara."

It had been a week since they arrived at Splintertree Post and after a couple of days of rest and the rather costly attentions of a healer they had left the settlement. They were now walking east along the Ashenvale road at a leisurely pace. Maurus had been itching to get out on the hunt again, but he'd had to take the time to heal properly, especially when it turned out he'd not only been concussed but also gotten several cracked ribs. Arianna had opted to tag along, surprising Maurus somewhat.

"Yes, well, both very interesting places. Terrible things happened there," the elf said, shrugging.

Maurus glanced at the elf, then shrugged as well and said: "Yeah. But it's not all bad. I don't know much about Azshara, but Demon Fall Canyon is already entering legend because of Hellscream." His admiration was audible in his voice. "A shame I can't pay my respects at his grave," he added.

"Why? Afraid of all the demons?" the elf asked, smirking. "Or are you just in that much of a hurry to prove yourself to the idiots at Splintertree?" she continued, the smirk being replaced by a frown.

"I am not afraid of the demons," the tauren grumbled, "but it would be stupid to walk right into a demon stronghold. There is neither sense nor honor in needlessly throwing away your life. Besides, you can't just walk into the canyon."

In fact, Maurus explained, the Felfire Hills were only open to raiding parties and large traveling groups trying to save time going through the demon-infested area. Though years had passed since The Third War, the demons still maintained a strong presence, especially in the canyons to the south. The cliffs were highly defensible positions and more demons kept appearing to replace the slain. Fortunately, the demons were confined by the great rivers around the Hills and the mountains they hid in and the only bridges over the rivers were heavily guarded. Any demonic attempt to leave the Hills in force would almost certainly be stopped and any attempt to eliminate the demons base of operation would likely be incredibly costly. As the situation was quite stable, an attempt to remove the demons was not likely to be made anytime soon.

"Though that's the excuse of cowards. We should purge the demons so we can properly honor Hellscream's sacrifice. It's a disgrace to let the site of his greatest deed be taken over by the very enemy he fought," Maurus finished, his voice lowering into a growl.

"It would seem like a sensible decision not to expend troops when the threat is contained," Arianna said neutrally.

"Have you seen the Hills? They corrupt the forest just by being there, turning the place dark and twisted. Even the air is tainted!" Maurus said, anger and disgust in his voice.

"I know much of demonic corruption, thank you," Arianna answered coldly. "I merely pointed out that the resources needed to properly eradicate the demons might be better used elsewhere when the demons are no great threat."

"Removing demons should be our first priority," Maurus grumbled. "Besides, reclaiming Hellscream's grave would be the right thing to do. And it would heighten morale."

Arianna nodded, then looked at the tauren with a puzzled expression. "Wait, Grom Hellscream, Bane of Manneroth the Flayer , is buried in Demon Fall Canyon? Why wasn't he buried somewhere not oozing with fel?"

"To be buried at the site of your greatest accomplishment is only right and proper," Maurus said, giving the elf an annoyed glare. "It's an inspiration for the future."

Arianna made a neutral sound in the back of her throat and shrugged.

The pair fell silent and walked on. In the distance the garrison came into view.

Several large, burrows were arranged around the road, structures of pitted stone, topped with wood and large metal spikes. A low row of outward-facing sharpened logs surrounded most of the post. On the other side of the burrows was a tall, wooden wall, blocking the bridge from view. Two large watchtowers flanked a closed gate in the wall, leading to the bridge, Maurus assumed. Another watchtower stood to the left side of the road, closest to Maurus and Arianna, topped with a wide platform. A couple of scorpion tails hung down from the platform, lazily swinging back and forth.  _"A wyvern nest,_ " Maurus thought. Several banners bearing the mark of the Horde hung on the buildings or from poles placed at the edges of the garrison.

Many grim-looking orcs, trolls and tauren, clad in the traditional grunt armor, moved about or stood on guard silently. The whole place radiated an oppressive feeling, further added to by the dark, rotten forest visible just on the other side of deep ravine carved by the river. The place was mostly silent, except for the sounds of movement and the roar of the river.

Five guards moved to intercept Maurus and Arianna, the orcs and single troll of the group glaring suspiciously at the elf and her demon.

Maurus and Arianna stopped a few feet from the guards. Maurus brought his fist to his chest and greeted the guards: "Glory to the Horde. I am Maurus of the Ragetotem tribe and this is Arianna Flameweaver." The elf copied his movements, though with less enthusiasm.

The guards mirrored their greeting, before the closest orc came forward and introduced himself as Thrum, son of Gorrum.

"What brings you to Felfire Hill? The road is closed for any group numbering less than twenty," Thrum said gruffly.

"I'm here because Sharptalon is supposed to be somewhere around here," Maurus said, eyeing the other grunts warily. They were all looking very intently at the felhunter and its owner.

The scarred front orc spat, then said: "You're here to take down that blasted thing? Thank the spirits. It's been attacking anything that moves for weeks now."

"I'm here for the hunt, yes," Maurus said. "If you could point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful."

The grunt snorted. "We managed to teach it not to come here, but anyone to the north along the river needs to be careful not to get picked off. So you should look for it there. I wish you luck, the beast is dangerous."

"Thanks. Though I don't expect to rely on luck. Anything else I should look out for?"

"No. Alliance members keep away from these parts and the demons are quiet this month. No movements for weeks now, so the last raiding party apparently did a good job. Still, no reason to relax. Right boys?" The last two words were almost shouted and elicited fierce sounds of agreement from the grunts behind him.

"Well, thanks for the directions." Maurus turned to leave, but Thrum caught his arm and leaned in to whisper: "Be careful of the warlock, they're unpredictable, especially around here."

Maurus raised an eyebrow and studied the guards. "Thanks for the help. Goodbye."

Then he turned fully and began walking, sending Arianna a questioning look. She gave the grunts a disdainful glance before following the tauren to the north, off the road and beneath the thick canopy of green and purple leaves.

"I didn't actually expect you to tag along," Maurus said after a while.

"You think I should have stayed? Yes, that would've been brilliant. They made me feel so welcome," Arianna answered contemptuously.

"Thought you heard that," Maurus said, smiling wryly. "Think you get suspicious of outsiders, especially warlocks, when you're on demon watch."

The elf shrugged. "So, you'll be careful now? That'll be interesting to see."

Maurus grinned. "I'm always careful. Haven't died yet. Nor have you killed me yet. I think I'll live."

"You like tempting fate, don't you?"

"Don't think fate is so easily tempted."

* * *

 

A couple of days later, Maurus moved slowly through the forest, scanning the treetops for any sign of movement. The hippogriff had so far eluded him. That he couldn't really track it like Ursangous hadn't surprised him, but he'd hoped to be able to find more signs of it than he had. When that failed, he'd taken to walking around rather noisily, hoping to get the attention of the allegedly very aggressive creature. He'd even asked Arianna to order Ash to be as loud and obvious as possible, hoping the red demon would stand out sufficiently to attract Sharptalon. She'd actually done as he asked but to no effect. The frustrating lack of results was probably why she was now stomping around behind him, apparently intent on annoying him as much as possible.

"How long are you going to walk around the forest, pretending to see signs of the hippogriff?" She asked snidely, stepping up beside him.

"I have found signs," Maurus grumbled.

"I had actually expected you to be a better tracker; otherwise I would have suggested staying on the road," she continued flippantly. "If you can't track Sharptalon at all, you should just give up and go back."

"I am a competent tracker, though it might be the constantly blabbering elf that's distracting me," Maurus growled.

"Maybe you should ask for help from me? Ash is a hound after all and could probably track it, seeing as he doesn't track by something as trivial as trails and scents."

"The hunt is a test of the hunter's skill and strength. I need to find and slay the beast myself!" Maurus said sharply, frowning at the elf.

"Oh. So, what about the asking Thrum for help or including Ash? Isn't that getting help?"

"Narrowing down the area to search is only sensible. And," he continued, snorting, "using bait is natural for hunters."

"So, when Talon appeared and attacked him, would that have counted as doing it yourself?"

Maurus sighed. He apparently wasn't easily forgiven. "I wouldn't have had him fight. I'd get him out of the way and take on my prey, hopefully taking it by surprise and grounding it."

"And probably injuring Ash in your haste move him," she countered.

"He can take it and heal. It's not like you haven't hurt me to get-" Maurus continued irritably, interrupted when a shrill cry reached the two, followed by a guttural shout and the crack of a whip. Maurus froze in surprise for a second, then sprinted in the direction of the noise, drawing his axe. The elf followed swiftly.

It didn't take long to reach the cause of the sound. Maurus crashed through the undergrowth into a clearing, only to stop, stunned at the sight. In front of him was a creature he instantly recognized as the goal of his hunt. But the winged beast was not alone. Two giant, blue skinned creatures, at least two feet taller than Maurus, were trying to corner the hippogriff. Sharptalon was frantically dodging their sweeping great axes and the whips of the other melee combatants. The four, almost naked, oddly alluring female humanoids sported wings, horns and tails that gave away their demonic heritage. Spread out in the clearing, seven small, muddy grey creatures gibbered and laughed, throwing fireballs into the melee with impunity. A third blue giant lumbered toward the melee, blood streaming down his face from his ruined left eye.

Sharptalon was bleeding from several wounds and sporting several burns. One wing hung limp and twisted and was soaked in blood. Still, spread across the clearing were quite a few corpses and the hippogriff fought on with the ferocity of a cornered rat.

Arianna inhaled sharply then exchanged a quick glance with Maurus and said, sounding slightly surprised: "Demon slaying."

Maurus nodded and charged, roaring a battle cry, his muscles tensed in anticipation of the fight. His shout startled some of the imps, who turned around just in time to freeze in horror before Maurus kicked one of them in the head, the impact making a wet crunching sound. To his right, Ash growled as he pounced on a second imp, which squealed in fear. Ahead, one of the blue giants suddenly turned transparent and greenish, its axe-swing passing harmlessly through Sharptalons left claw.

Maurus raised his axe to strike the first of the winged demons, just as she turned and looked at him with a slight smile and raised her arms, as if to embrace him. He felt his steps slow; his arms grow heavy and his mind going fuzzy. Suddenly Sharptalon didn't seem very important. Nor did it seem terribly smart to kill this pleasant little thing, whose deep, scarlet eyes promised so much.

Something blue and black moved in the corner of his eye and Maurus dimly glanced at it. The fog in his head immediately lifted when he saw the blade of an axe moving towards him. He narrowly dodged the horizontal sweep, falling to his back. A second later his battle rage returned in full to banish the remnants of the enchantment and he snarled at the cowardly opponents. The female let out an annoyed huff and raised her whip, only to shudder and let out something between a moan and a scream of pain. Her gaze moved beyond Maurus as her shoulder and face suddenly began blistering. She folded out her wings and flew over Maurus, out of his sight.

Maurus didn't have time to wonder about that as the blue giant attacked again, bringing its axe down towards Maurus' head. Maurus swung his axe with all his might, deflecting the demons blow to his left side where the axe dug into the ground with a low thump. Maurus rolled; avoiding the demons armored foot, then got to his hooves as the demon pulled the axe out with a grunt.

Out the corner of his eye, Maurus saw that Arianna and her pet demon had killed several of the imps and were engaging the female demon. Then the blue giant, the one missing an eye, attacked again, roaring incomprehensible words at him.

Maurus ducked, stepping towards the demon under its swing and sliced it across its bare side, the only unarmored place aside from the head and left arm. The demon howled and leaped away from Maurus, then furiously pressed the attack, leaving him on the defensive as he desperately dodged and deflected the powerful blows.

A numbing strike hit the tauren's right shoulder, but left the demon open. Maurus stepped into the demon's blind spot and buried his axe in its side, before slipping under its arm. As the demon whirled, Maurus swung again, attacking the demons unarmored left arm. With the momentum of both the demon's and Maurus' movement, the axe sliced through the limb with a crunching of bone.

As the hand was separated from the demon, tumbling to the ground in spray of dark blood, Maurus frantically ducked, dodging the wild movement of the demons axe, only to get the wind knocked out of him by a kick from the enraged demon. Then the howling demon dropped the two-handed weapon and struck him with an armored fist. Two more blows hit Maurus, before he managed to avoid a third and get out of range. Then he rushed forward, jumping into the next blow, taking it on the shoulder plate as he swung his axe in a vertical strike, planting his axe in the center of the demons chest. The demon howled in agony, lashing out desperately before its knees buckled, Maurus pulling his axe out as the demon fell over.

Maurus swiftly cut of its head, surveying the battleground as he made the move. Arianna and the felhunter had taken care of all the imps and the female and were moving towards the two remaining demons, one female and one of the blues, who both stood over the crippled form of Sharptalon. The rest of the demons were reduced to badly torn corpses scattered around the clearing. The hippogriff was still shrieking defiantly at the two demons, who turned as Maurus again charged and let out another battle cry.

The blue demon turned insubstantial, obviously to its major annoyance and, seeing the carnage in the clearing, the last female demon flapped her wings, rising into the air.

"Oh, no you don't," Maurus snarled, leaping after her, grabbing her lower leg in an iron grip. With a panicked yelp the demon was dragged to the ground by the Maurus' considerably larger weight, slamming her back painfully against the ground.

Before Maurus even managed to raise his axe for a blow, Ash leapt at the prone demon, savagely tearing at her arms and chest, trying to get to the struggling demon's neck. For a moment the female managed to defend against the felhunter, but then it got past her hands and ripped out her throat. Even after this, the demonic hound kept mauling the weakly struggling demon until Arianna barked a command, making Ash move behind the blue demon.

The tauren and the elf faced the remaining enemy, who roared silently in its ghostly form. As it turned solid again, Maurus launched himself at it, glad for the distraction the felhunter made by snapping at the demon's ankles.

Despite the distraction, the blue giant stopped Maurus' charge and kept him at bay, not making the openings the tauren had taken advantage of against the other demon. Maurus struggled to defend against the raging demon's powerful blows, taking several glancing hits, each one numbing the body part it hit.

As Maurus took a step back from the melee, the demon suddenly let out a howl of pain and rage. The skin on its face and chest blistered and darkened, horrible burns soon covering much of the demons torso. A purple-glowing black bolt hit the creature's chest next, causing it to grimace and turn its gaze from Maurus to Arianna. It charged towards her, shouldering Maurus to the side with its armored right shoulder.

Maurus almost fell, but recovered and turned, lunging after the demon. As he swung his axe at the weak spot in the armor behind the right knee, Ash leapt for the same spot on the left. The axe and powerful jaws bit deep, crippling the giant, who toppled over with a shout. Instantly the felhunter was upon him, biting and clawing at the struggling demon, before it threw him of. Maurus pressed his advantage, attacking the prone opponent savagely.

When a familiar purple beam hit the demon, Maurus found an opening as it jerked in pain. He dodged a desperate swing and swung his axe in an overhead arc, planting it with a crunch in the demons face, stopping its movements.

Maurus pulled his axe free and rested it over his shoulder. "Was that all of them?" he asked.

"Apparently," the elf answered, packing away another dark crystal.

The elf, slightly singed but not really hurt, began checking the corpses for valuables while Maurus walked towards Sharptalon. The felhunter stayed at the blue demon, gorging itself on the still warm corpse. Sweeping his gaze across the clearing, Maurus counted around twenty of demons. Sharptalon had obviously put up a tremendous fight, only losing because of the sheer number of enemies and its clipped wings.

As if hearing his thoughts, Arianna called from the other end of the clearing: "Still think you could have completed that hunt?"

Maurus merely grunted in response, walking up to the hippogriff. The majestic creature was still alive, though obviously dying. The blue and brown creature was covered in blood, both its own and its enemies. It lay on its side, with one broken wing beneath it and the other, nearly severed, draped limply over its stomach which had been cut open. Numerous burns covered its body, one of its hind legs was broken and the left side of its head was a gory mess. In spite of all of this, Sharptalon still shrieked in defiance, though it sounded more like whimpers.

Maurus looked sadly at the hippogriff, its furious but very intelligent eyes gazing right back. He glanced at the clearing and then back at the broken creature, feeling a sudden comprehension.

"You fought well and protected the forest. Now rest," he said solemnly and then, in one swift movement, cut off Sharptalons head, ending its pain.

Kneeling beside the hippogriff, he muttered a prayer in taurahe for the departing spirit. Then he gently put the head in his backpack.

"So, are you going to return and tell people of your defeat of Sharptalon now?" Arianna asked blithely, looking into a bag which one of the female demons had apparently carried.

"No," Maurus answered sharply. "But I will take proof of its death and tell Splintertree post of this battle. Sharptalon deserves to be remembered as a defender of the forest, not used to further some random, lying hunter's reputation."

The warlock nodded slightly, taking a small bundle of papers out of the bag and examining them curiously.

"We should return to the garrison and tell them we met demons on this side of the river," Maurus said.

"Yes, we need to return quickly," Arianna agreed, worry evident in her voice. Maurus glanced at the elf, surprised. This was the first time she'd betrayed such anxiety since he'd met her.

"These are orders," Arianna continued, putting the papers into her backpack. Then she got up and moving hurriedly through the clearing. "There are more groups on this side, and they intend to attack the garrison. And soon."

Maurus inhaled sharply at that, then followed the elf and her demon. When they left the clearing they were moving at a brisk pace. He muttered a prayer that they would arrive safely and in time.


	5. Blood and Fire

Ashenvale Adventures

Blood and Fire

The sun was setting when Maurus, Arianna and Ash caught sight of the garrison. Though they hadn't encountered any more demons, the long run had tired them greatly and now they slowed to a brisk walk. As they moved into the gap in the barricade, Maurus greeted the unfamiliar guards, who watched them warily, weapons at the ready.

"Halt," the front orc barked as the guards around him lowered their spears to point at the approaching trio. "We don't want foreign warlocks in our camp this late. Turn around and go."

"We don't have time for this," Maurus snapped. "We have to speak to your superior."

"We have our orders. Strangers are not let in at this time. They put the garrison at risk."

"As charming and inviting as this place is, we are not looking to spend the night," Arianna said irritably. "We are merely here to give you the chance to prepare, so you won't be slaughtered when the demons attack."

"Do you take us for peons? A ten-foot wall and over three dozen trained grunts are more than enough to keep the fiends from breaking through here," the orc growled dangerously, not moving an inch.

"Well, when you are attacked from this side, you are in quite a different situation. Now let me tell your commander so he can prepare accordingly. Demons are on this side of the river and will attack soon," Arianna sneered contemptuously, rummaging through her backpack.

"What? The demons haven't crossed the river in numbers in years and besides, our scouts would-"

He trailed of as Arianna pulled something large from her backpack. Though lacking the helmet and horribly mutilated, there was no mistaking the blue head for anything other than that of one of the giant blue demons.

"I assume from you finally shutting up that you know these don't just wander around without a reason."

The orc deflated slightly, then gestured to his guards to stand down.

"Follow me."

"When did you get that head and how did it fit?" Maurus asked, astonished, as they followed the orc.

"Cut it off when you contemplated Sharptalon. Magic bagspace. Very expensive."

Maurus grunted in response, still slightly confused.

The orc led them to the barracks. The inside was hot and dry and smelled strongly of sweat and blood. A hostile and curious murmuring rose as the small crowd inside noticed Arianna and her two demonic accessories but neither Ash nor his mistress took notice and merely followed the orc to the center of the large room, where an imposing, dark green troll was sparring with a pale green orc.

"Oi, Zolan, there's bad news," the guard shouted.

As the troll glanced to the trio and the demon, his opponent sensed an opening and attacked. Unfortunately for him, Zolan wasn't that distracted, and brought the orc to his back with a few quick strikes of his training spear. Then he kicked him nonchalantly in the side.

"Fight with honor or at least make your sneak attacks more sneaky," he said reproachfully to the prone orc. "Ok, show's over all, back to ya posts.

Most of the crowd dispersed almost instantly, two of them helping the dazed orc up and dragging him away.

"I'm Zolan, proud commander of the place. You bring me demons I see. What'ya want? Or did'ya sneak into Felfire Hills and get caught?"

"Arianna and Maurus," Arianna said bluntly. "You need to see these," she continued, handing him the orders they had found.

The troll looked over the papers, absently licking his left tusk. Then he murmured: "Hm, this be bad news, mon." Then he cleared his throat. "Tharg, get Seran."

The orc that had escorted them left without a word.

"Garon, prepare the boys for battle from the back. Improve defenses in any possible way."

A huge, almost black-skinned orc left the room. A short while passed, before a tapping announced the arrival of an old wizened orc, clad in ornate black robes.

"What now?" the wizened old orc yelled in a gravelly voice, striking his gnarled staff against the floor with each step. Zolan gave him a respectful nod and held out the papers to the orc. "Seran, welcome. I need to know exactly what these say."

Seran accepted the papers and began reading them, squinting in concentration while Zolan turned to Maurus and Arianna. "Right, ya two can leave. Report to Garon at the outermost burrow; ya're conscripted for the defense."

"Understood," Arianna said curtly, nodding stiffly before turning and moving for the door. Maurus muttered an annoyed "very well" at the already inattentive troll, and followed Arianna.

As they moved toward the burrow, Maurus growled softly, looking around the torch-lit garrison. Everywhere, grunts moved with grim efficiency, preparing for the imminent battle.

"Didn't expect you to simply comply like that," the tauren muttered. Arianna shrugged slightly in response but said nothing. Before they even reached the burrow, they heard loud shouting. As they entered, a group of grunts came into view, standing only a few yards away from the dark-skinned orc from before. Apparently they were used to the way Garon gave orders, because they didn't even flinch at the volume or insults the orc used. A moment later, Garon fell silent and the grunts quickly moved around the tauren and the elf, spreading to attend to their duties.

Arianna took a few steps forward, saluted and said simply: "Reporting for duty." Maurus followed suit.

The huge orc turned to face them, saluted them briskly and barked angrily: "Great, more mercenaries. Fantastic. I'm first sergeant Garon. Ya answer to me and my subordinate and ya do as ya're told. No discussion, no great ideas. If any of ya get any ideas, ya don't act on them without my permission. I will not have my battleline fall apart because some amateurs want to be clever. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," the pair answered, Arianna dispassionately and Maurus in a grumble.

Garon continued, each sentence louder than the one preceding it:

"Good! Now, all casters at this garrison are paired up with a meat shield. So ya stay together and cover each other's back. I don't care if ya have pets, elf," the huge orc glared at Arianna like she'd dared to interrupt him. "It's ya big friend who's gonna defend ya, 'cause ya're gonna use that fel hunter for spell disruption, which is ya main job here. That means ya stop the slimy devils from charming anyone and take out as many as ya can. Save as much crowd control as ya can, we never know when we'll need it. Ya're position is right outside here. Just follow orders and hold the line. Dismissed!"

The pair saluted and exited the building, ears ringing from the volume the orc had reached. They quickly found their position, right next to an undead grunt and an orc shaman and two melee-equipped orcs and began waiting for the upcoming battle.

* * *

 

Several hours passed with nothing but the movement of the soldiers and the departure of four wind riders breaking up the monotony, the troll-ridden wyverns quickly vanishing above the treetops. The last light had vanished hours ago and a thick layer of clouds concealed both the moons and stars, leaving the forest shrouded in darkness. The only sources of light were the dim illumination emanating from the burrows. Silence reigned in the garrison, only broken by the occasional short conversation and the clanking of armor and weapons when someone moved suddenly.

Maurus stood rigidly at his post behind the barricade, fidgeting with his axe and scanning the forest for the slightest hint of movement.

"Scared?" sounded the question from behind him.

Maurus snorted in response. "I wish they would hurry up. Combat isn't a problem, but I hate the waiting," he muttered, glancing at the warlock and stamping his hoof, an angry and nervous movement.

"You're not the only one feeling that," the elf answered, motioning towards the rest of the camp. Along most of the barricade, grunts and non-military fighters stood, almost all of them in pairs. Most of the soldiers looked grimly expecting, but several moved around restlessly. At the main opening in the barricade, thirty yards away, Zolan, Seran and Garon stood, calmly surveying the area. Zolan and Garon were both clad in black versions of the traditional, spiked grunt uniform and brandished a wicked spear and two huge swords respectively. Seran stood slightly behind them, confidently leaning on his staff next to a huge felhunter, nearly three times the size of Ash.

Maurus turned his gaze back to the forest. "I should be more confident with these soldiers on my side," he sighed.

"We are fighting demons, nothing is certain," Arianna answered unconcernedly. "But we are at least fighting with experienced demon slayers."

Maurus conceded with a nod, not taking his eyes of the forest. Something seemed to have moved, but he couldn't quite spot it again. As he strained his eyes to find the movement again, he muttered out the corner of his mouth: "Arianna, do you see-"

He was interrupted by a sharp command:

"Duck!"

Reacting without thinking, he dropped to his knees. As he moved, he felt scorching heat pass near his left shoulder, singeing his fur. Confused, he looked up into the dark night sky to see numerous bat-winged shapes flying almost soundlessly through the air. Flickering light lit the flying shapes in uneven bursts, allowing Maurus to see that the flying shapes were succubi, each carrying an imp who rained fire onto the soldiers with wild abandon.

For a moment, confusion spread through the garrison, but then the discipline of the trained soldiers kicked in. From the burrows came several volleys of arrows and javelins and everyone outside who could grabbed a ranged weapon and retaliated. A moment later, arrows, bolts, spells and other projectiles joined the fireballs flying through the air. Several succubi were hit by the first waves of projectiles, falling to the ground, their high-pitched screams mingling with the wailing of the doomed imps, the crackling of fire and the twangs of bows and crossbows.

Maurus growled in annoyance, eschewing his axe and drawing his shield and mace. Arianna stood behind him, flinging bolts of purple shadow and searing flame at flying demons, but he was unable to attack the airborne enemies at all. " _At least I'm of some use,"_  he thought as he dodged one fireball and blocked another fiery projectile which would otherwise have hit the elf behind him.

Two furious roars sounded over the garrison as a couple of windriders joined the fray, killing several demons in quick succession and spreading the enemy flyers. Several more succubi fell to the Horde counterattack before they abruptly dived, a volley of fireballs obscuring their movement and allowing them to get low enough to drop the imps inside the garrison, where the madly gibbering creatures scampered about, throwing flames everywhere.

Maurus smiled grimly at finally being able to join the fight for real. He half turned to charge the imps, only to be stopped by Garon's gruff shout: "Stay at your posts, you dogs! First and Second, you're on the imps. Move!"

Maurus reluctantly stood his ground, as two groups of grunts hastened to deal with the imps. That left about two thirds manning the barricades and shooting at the succubi still in the air. Unfortunately, the succubi now moved with a lot more speed and agility, unencumbered as they were. They dived and weaved through the projectiles and as Maurus watched, four of them swarmed a windrider, a whiplash blinding the rider, while the three others attacked the windrider itself with claws outstretched.

The windrider managed to kill the front attacker, teeth and claws lashing into the lithe demon, but the two others latched on to the wings and in moments the wings where crippled and the beast plummeted to the ground. The other windrider dodged and weaved desperately, its ability to threaten the succubi now extremely limited because of their increased agility. Meanwhile, the rest of the succubi went back to quick hit-and-run attacks at the ground troops. One succubus dived to Maurus' left, ripping the chest and throat of the shaman there open, his forsaken partner crying out in anguish.

Arianna swiftly allowed the undead to get revenge, speaking a few words of power and cursing the succubus to writhe in agony. It crashed to the ground, where the undead leapt at it, hacking at it furiously.

Maurus stood his ground, keeping a wary eye open for flyers swooping in to attack. Inside the garrison, the imps were being hunted down, but they had already succeeded in setting fire to a burrow and a tower and the roar of the blaze added another layer to the battle din.

Glancing briefly towards the tree line, Maurus caught sight of a great wave of imps capering madly towards the barricade just as Zolan shouted: "Incoming on foot. Stand ready!"

There was a clatter as a lot of the soldiers discarded their ranged weapons and took up melee weapons. The others kept the ranged weapons a few moments longer, taking a few shots at the advancing enemies before also preparing for melee and readying for the incoming volley of fireballs.

Just before they reached the barricade, every imp launched handfuls of fire. The volley lit up the barricade, momentarily blinding the defenders and ruining what little night vision they had. When Maurus' sight returned, he saw the small fiends leaping around just outside the barricade, giggling and howling maniacally as they continued to shower the defenders in fireballs. Several parts of the wooden blockade had caught fire and so had several patches of grass inside the garrison. Maurus growled in frustration at the imps, only to inhale sharply as he noticed what the barrage and ensuing blaze had been for. Garon shouted a grim warning as the line of giant blue demons charged through the imps, two-handed axes and swords at the ready. Several centered on the main opening in the blockade but the rest moved purposefully towards the burning parts of the barricade as if it wasn't even there.

To Maurus' left, a powerful axe swing broke through the fire-weakened wood and the blue demon attacked the startled undead. The forsaken dodged the first swing and blocked the second with his steel shield, gritting his teeth in pain at the block. Maurus and Arianna moved quickly to help the beleaguered undead and to stop the demon from getting through the hole in the defenses and making room for more to get in.

Maurus roared a battlecry as the warlock launched a dark bolt at the demon. Taking advantage of the distraction, the undead attacked, cutting a deep gash in the demon's side.

While the demon took a step backward, growling at the pain, Maurus took up position at the forsaken's side, getting a grim smile fron the undead man. Ash leapt at the demon's ankles while the two warriors worked together to put the demon on the defensive. The burns appearing on the demon showed that the elf behind them had also joined in.

The demon roared and swung its axe angrily, but the undead dodged and Maurus deflected the blow with his shield even as Ash got hold of its ankle and another bolt from Arianna hit the demon square in the chest. As the demon staggered, Maurus and the undead attacked simultaneously, the undead piercing the demon's chest while Maurus crushed its face.

Maurus felt a moment of satisfaction as the demon collapsed, but then three more blue giants forced their way into the gap and the undead grunted in pain as two fireballs hit him in the side. He didn't fall though, merely grit his teeth and readied himself for the next demons.

Under the onslaught of the blue giants and the barrage of fireballs, they were forced back, even though several other grunts had joined the fray and Arianna had banished one of the giants. The blue demons trampled across the corpse of the shaman, making the undead howl in rage, even though he kept his position. The imps spilled through the gap, flinging flame left and right, further weakening the barricade.

Maurus dodged and blocked as well as he could, but his sheer size made it impossible to avoid the bombardment of fire and soon he was both sore from the glancing hits and burned by the fire, his armor scorching hot in places.

Arianna and Ash focused on the imps now. The felhunter and the various spells thinned the numbers considerably but more demons kept spilling through the gap and the giant blue demons had the grunts on the defensive. A fourth and fifth moved through the gap and charged the defenders, who could only glance at them in despair as they desperately blocked the already overwhelming attacks.

Maurus blocked an axe swing, only to notice, out of the corner of his eye, one of the new demons swinging his sword in an overhead arc aimed right at Maurus' head. Time seemed to slow as Maurus' blood chilled, his eyes following the blade, which moved absurdly slowly yet unavoidably towards him. Even though he tried, he knew he wouldn't be able to move to avoid the fatal blow.

Then the blade and the entire demon turned ghostly, fading to a green transparency and the weapon passed harmlessly through the tauren's head, a moment before a javelin passed through the insubstantial demon and straight into the chest of the adjacent demon. A chorus of voices shouted the Horde's battle cry as a group of grunts, led by Zolan, Seran and Garon charged from the side.

The group of grunts with Zolan and Garon in the lead attacked the demons savagely; the spear and two swords of the troll and orc leaders driving the demons back towards the gap again, aided by the rest of the grunts. Seran's huge felhunter cut a swath through the imps before jumping outside the barricade to hunt further.

As the demons were pushed back into the gap in the barricade, Seran paused in his spellcasting and grumbled at the defenders gathered around Maurus: "Conscripts, find and kill the ones that got through. We'll take it from here."

Maurus, Arianna and a few others turned and moved back through the garrison to follow the order. Now that he was finally away from the rain of fire, Maurus took out his axe instead of his shield and mace. The smell of blood and charred flesh and burning forest filled the air and screams, shouts, and the clanking of metal sounded through the garrison. Fire blazed in several of the burrows and all over the ground. Corpses of defenders and demons alike littered the ground and the barricade was breached in several places, where the fight was most vicious.

Several imps were found and killed in short order as they moved through the battlefield, following the felhunter as it tracked the small demons on Arianna's orders.

They had just surprised and quickly dispatched eight of the imps that had been dancing in the opening to the burning barracks when the felhunter bounded towards the great wooden gate, sparking some anxiety in Maurus. The towers and the wall were virtually abandoned, most of the soldiers engaged at the other end of the garrison. The remaining guards moved jerkily towards the middle of the gate.

Ash abruptly changed direction towards a small, round guardhouse, leaping at something inside with a low growl. While the felhunter engaged the enemy in the building, Maurus noticed the guards were in the process of moving the huge beams that kept the giant gate securely closed.

"What're you doing?" he shouted incredulously, sprinting towards the guards, followed closely by the other conscripts. One of the guards, a pale green grunt, seemed to be waking from at daze, but the rest continued what they were doing, working slowly but steadily.

Just before Maurus and the other conscripts reached the oddly behaving guards, a group of succubi landed in front of them and the group of conscripts abruptly stopped the headlong rush. Maurus felt a familiar, foggy feeling clouding his head and noted irritably that the rest of the conscripts probably felt the same.

"Damn, not again," Arianna said in a somewhat slurred voice. Two succubi flew over Maurus toward the elf, while the front succubi moved towards Maurus, her hips swaying lazily and her lips curled in a satisfied smile. "Wouldn't you strong, capable soldiers give us a hand and open that gate?" she asked, her voice melodious and seductive, untold promises in every syllable.

Maurus took a step forward, lowering his axe and reaching with his left hand for the succubus' face.

"Already starting on the fun?" The demon said, raising a slender eyebrow and smirking wickedly.

Maurus gently touched the succubus' cheek before placing his hand on the nape of her neck. Then he grit his teeth and pulled her sharply forward, moving his head swiftly downward and turning his head slightly so her forward motion carried her straight into his left horn.

The demon let out a piercing shriek as the horn gouged out her eye, before Maurus pushed her violently into two of the others and jumped forward, gripping his axe with both hands and swinging it in a wide arc. It took off a startled succubus' head and sank deep into the chest of another.

Curses and angry growls behind Maurus told him that the seduction had faded from several of them. The angry, ashamed conscripts roared furiously as they fell upon the small group of succubi. The demons, suddenly forced to defend themselves, lost the grip on the rest of the Horde group, who also attacked. Several demons were cut down immediately, among them the three Maurus had pushed over. The others tried to take to the air, their whips and their claws not enough to defend on the ground against the fighters. Some made it, but most were intercepted, either by reckless tackles or by having their wings destroyed by quick-thinking attackers. Arianna also brought several to the ground by making them spasm in agony and a troll stopped one succubus from taking flight by freezing its wings.

Maurus took a whip to the shoulder plate, dodged to the right around another and then brought his axe around in a diagonal swing upwards, slicing the demon open from hip to shoulder. A sharp pain in his neck made him turn around, only to see another succubus slumping to the ground in front of him, a heavily burned, but still familiar undead pulling his sword from the corpse and grinning grimly at him. Then the undead turned to engage another succubus and Maurus rushed to do the same, roaring a battlecry.

Grounded and up against a group of angry fighters who knew and stopped their main magic, the succubi didn't last long and soon the demons were all dead or dying and the Horde group had only lost two of their number. Turning to the gate, Maurus saw that two guards lay unconscious in front of the gate, all beams still in place. As Maurus and the rest approached the gate, two more guards exited the guard house, drenched in blood and looking rather grim. "Cowardly demon filth" one of them spat.

Maurus turned a questioning glance at Arianna when he noticed Ash was missing.

"Back in the Nether," she said. "Seems the attack was just a distraction for this. We need to-" she trailed of, her eyes widening.

Maurus followed her gaze to the top of the gate. At the top stood a white skinned creature, its twelve-foot frame clad in ornate black armor. His two green eyes glowed balefully under the two black horns curling from his forehead. He balanced on the wall by flapping his large, black bat-wings lazily. In each of his two clawed hands he held a naked, limb creature. The right one was a light blue troll male and the left was a female orc. In the flickering flame of the garrison it was just possible to see the intricate web of shapes and symbols covering their bodies. The blood trickling from the lines made Maurus realize that the patterns had been carved deep into their flesh.

A deep baritone rumbled forth from the demon, oddly loud and echoing over the clamor of battle, the unpleasant syllables rising and falling in an almost mesmerizing pattern.

Maurus stared in horror at the scene for a moment until Arianna brought him out of it by shouting harshly: "Quick, kill the sacrifices!"

The group moved sluggishly, as if waking from at deep sleep, before they rushed towards the demon. They only got a couple of steps before a swarm of buzzing, biting insects enveloped them, flying into their mouths and eyes, crawling into their noses and ears, making it impossible to see or breathe. All the while the demon kept chanting, the volume and discomfort caused by the words increasing with each syllable.

Precious seconds passed as they struggled with the locusts, until the insects vanished as abruptly as they appeared. Suddenly free of the distraction, the group of conscripts rushed desperately forward, only to stop short when the hostages started screaming as sickly green flames engulfed them. The demon revealed his sharp teeth in an amused smirk as he looked at the two beings in his hands writhing in agony, before he spoke another sentence with finality, the syllables almost feeling like a physical force slamming against Maurus' skull. Then he dropped the burning, now silent orc and troll onto the wall and leapt backwards, flapping his wings to stay airborne.

"Know this: We are no mere myth or tale to frighten misbehaving children. We are the finest of The Legion, the Nathrezim, the Dreadlords. Witness our might and despair!" the Dreadlord announced, his smooth, deep voice rolling across the entire garrison.

"Get away from the gate," Arianna hissed furiously, backing quickly away from the gate. The rest of the group hesitated for a moment, before also backing away they did, a whistling sound reached their ears moments before two huge rocks, enveloped in green flames, hurtled from the sky, smashing into the gate with an earsplitting boom.

The resulting shockwave knocked Maurus from his hooves, landing him flat on his back. With a grunt of effort, he got up and tried to get his bearings. The gate, surrounding wall and the two guard towers had been completely leveled and two large craters were all that was left. Several of the conscripts lay still, blood seeping from mouth and ears and head wounds. Then he looked further away and his breath escaped him. On the other side of the bridge, across the expanse of the Felfire Hills, he could just make out a large horde of demons, several times the number they had fought so far, sprinting towards the bridge, howling and gibbering loud enough to drown out the blazing fire and the noise of battle.

Then he noticed movement in the craters. The void-black rock fragments of the meteors rose and assembled into two roughly humanoid forms, with absurdly large arms and legs and an equally disproportionally small torso and head. The rocks still burned a blinding green and the flame seemed to suggest eyes and a mouth in the small rock which served as a head.

"Infernals," he heard Arianna whisper, sounding slightly stunned.

Then the infernals noticed the surviving conscripts. They spread their arms out to each side and roared in challenge, a hellish, deep baritone unlike anything something humanoid should be able to utter.

The Dreadlord landed behind the infernals, and bared his teeth in a terrifying smile.

"The legion will burn this world to the ground!"


	6. Chapter 6

Ashenvale Adventures

Turning Tide

The infernals crunched wounded and dead alike as they charged, swinging their enormous arms. Their powerful blows sent the closest recovering conscripts flying, their bones breaking audibly. Maurus stared for a moment at the advancing demonic constructs, towering over even him, before he turned and ran. In front of him Arianna grabbed and forcibly turned two hesitating orcs away from the carnage.

"Flee, you fools! These are beyond us," she shouted, before sprinting of ahead of them. That snapped the rest of the group out of their shock and the fighters took off, two of the orcs dragging a wounded troll between them.

They ran through the shattered garrison, moving between the burning buildings, trying to outdistance the burning stone monsters behind them. Through the screams, shouts and the clamor of metal colliding, the heavy stomps of the infernals were somehow audible, their rising volume telling Maurus that the infernals were rapidly gaining on them.

As the group passed another burrow, a cry of pain and a crunch made Maurus glance back.

The infernals, running side by side, had caught up to and attacked the slowest of the group, the orcs carrying the wounded troll. One infernal crushed the right-hand orc against the ground with a vertical swing of its enormous fist, before the other infernal sent both the troll and the right orc flying off to the side with a wide swinging blow.

Maurus let out a growl at the sight and mentally cursed the dreadlord, who flew lazily behind the constructs.

As the infernals raised their arms to continue their attack, a strong, gravelly voice rang out, an odd resonance in the strange words spoken. Two cords of blinding white fire appeared around the torso of one infernal. The cords grew and snaked around its limbs, silvery flaming bonds seemingly smothering and replacing the green fire where they touched it. As the other infernal sent a female orc flying, the white-green one faltered in its charge before it threw itself at the other infernal, tackling it before it could strike again.

Maurus turned his gaze back forward and saw Zolan, Garon and Seran, along with several other grunts and Seran's giant felhunter. They were all worn, bloody and their equipment showed startling battle damage, but they looked no less determined for it. Seran leaned heavily on his staff, his right arm outstretched and shaking slightly while he kept up a steady stream of alien words like the ones Maurus had heard before. The rest of the group took up formation around Seran, eyes locked on a point behind the fleeing conscripts.

"Gate's gone. Lots of demons coming," Maurus shouted, slowing down as he approached the soldiers. Arianna and most of the other conscript slowed as well.

Zolan and his soldiers tensed and then, almost without a sound, the dreadlord swooped past Maurus and rushed at Zolan's group. No longer acting the relaxed leader, the winged demon fought with a feral grace and speed belying his size, ripping through one soldier with a smooth movement, drawing a scream of pain from the attacked troll. The demon weaved and whirled, masking his attacks with his wings and trading blows with Zolan, Garon and the soldiers, his claws as formidable as any steel weapon. In spite of their combat prowess, their superior number and surrounding the dreadlord, the Horde soldiers were on the defensive. Garon, Zolan and the Felhunter took the brunt of the attacks, standing between the dreadlord and Seran.

"Impressive, warlock," the dreadlord hissed, icy anger beneath the arrogance in his voice, "but we'll see how you fare when I rip out your heart!"

Maurus and the others moved to assist the grunts, when Zolan snapped: "Keep running, grab the rest, get out." He deflected a blow that would have crippled his arm and counter-attacked, only striking empty air as the dreadlord dodged.

"Vollana, Magdor, take the bridge," Garon growled, desperately parrying a flurry of blows from the dread lord. A female troll and a male orc disengaged from the formation and sprinted towards the broken wall and the bridge.

Maurus hesitated for a moment, glancing from the combat to the warriors moving towards the bridge.

"Go, that's an order!" Zolan ground out, taking a glancing hit which ruined his left shoulder pad in spite of the blow not connecting properly. The dreadlord simultaneously kicked Seran's felhunter in the side, eliciting a growl of pain.

"Run," Arianna said insistently and when Maurus glanced at her, she was already running, along with most of the others.

The burned forsaken warrior glowered at the demon commander, baring his teeth, and then, with a grimace of distaste, turned to run. Maurus turned and, with a heavy heart, ran again.

They ran over scorched and bloodied earth, flickering flames casting the burned-out garrison in a hellish light and when they reached the outermost part of the garrison it became obvious that the defense force had been broken. At least half of the defenders lay dead or unconscious amidst the fires and the broken barricade. Side by side with the Horde fallen were many demon casualties, a lot of them with several arrows sticking out of them.

The remaining Horde had clustered around the last intact barricade, with their backs to a burning tower. Despite their losses, the demon forces, mostly consisting of the blue giants and succubi, still outnumbered the Horde fighters handily and almost had them surrounded. The horde fighters fought viciously to avoid being completely boxed in, but they were fighting a losing battle, losing ground and fighters to the sheer overpowering strength of the demons.

Maurus caught sight of a troll grunt past the demons, just as a demon caught him in the left arm, almost completely severing the limb. For a moment, the grunt's brave mask fell, panic and pain flashing on the his face, and then he was lost behind the wall of demons again.

Maurus heard his blood roar in his ears. He gritted his teeth and gripped his shield and mace to the point of pain. He stopped his run just before barreling into Arianna, who had also stopped, along with several of the other conscripts.

"Stop," he snarled, almost in unison with the warlock and the dry hiss of a forsaken voice. The conscripts who had kept running, two trolls and an orc, faltered and stopped, the orc giving Maurus an incredulous look.

"You're nuts," one troll began, but Maurus interrupted him before he could say any more.

"Gather the rest, get out. That's the order!" Maurus growled, the words almost incomprehensible. In truth, he couldn't care less what order he had been given.

"We get them," he continued. "I'm point, let's go!"

With that he turned his gaze to the battle ahead and, after a moment, charged the filthy demons. Out the corner of his eye he noticed a gangly form moving with him, blackened skin identifying the forsaken. On Maurus' left, a burly troll moved purposefully with him, and the tauren thought he could make out other footfalls behind them. A moment later, just as the demons closest to them noticed the charging warriors, a roar issued forth from the advancing conscripts, raspy, deep, melodious and dry voices uniting in one battle cry, rage and fear and pride present in every syllable.

"For the Horde!" sounded the old war cry, just as Maurus bashed aside a succubus and leapt, shield first, at a blue demon, who had just turned to face him.

The demon staggered as Maurus slammed into it, before regaining its bearing and striking back. Maurus only barely turned aside the heavy blows of the giant's two-handed cleaver, each blow sending a jarring impact up the tauren's shield arm. Then a ragged cheer went up as the beleaguered defenders realized that help had arrived.

Maurus ducked under a wide swing and swung low, aiming for the demon's exposed knee, but the demon avoided the mace, barely, by taking a step backwards and reversing his swing. Again, Maurus deflected the attack on his shield, though only enough to have it bounce of his shoulder plate. The next attack went wide, Maurus barely needing to dodge it, as the demon staggered backwards. Maurus leapt at the chance and swung, striking the demon in the stomach, just below a large swathe of blisters and burns, which worsened even as the blow connected.

Out the corner of his eye, Maurus saw several of the newly arrived conscripts engaging the other demons. Then the demon growled and attacked again, forcing the tauren's attention back on it.

Maurus brought up his shield and supported it with his mace arm and still only barely deflected the heavy blow. Even as he reeled from the force of the attack, Maurus' leg crumpled beneath him as a steel boot smashed into his knee. As he staggered, his mace was knocked aside and then, reversing the swing, the demon forced the cleaver past Maurus' shield.

Mail and leather parted and broke and Maurus felt the blade sink into his flesh. His breath was forced from him in a harsh grunt and his whole body tensed, only worsening the pain. Almost reflexively, Maurus brought his shield and mace together onto the demon's arm, drawing a howl of pain from the demon and making it let go of the cleaver. As it did, Maurus' leg gave out completely. As he fell, Maurus swung his mace wildly at the giant blue, now unarmed, demon, his attack connecting with and breaking its ankle.

The demon stumbled, breaking its attempt at pummeling the tauren with its bare hands and Maurus strained and stood, his side burning with pain. Before the demon could recover, a black shimmering bolt hit, driving it back. Gritting his teeth, Maurus swung his mace again at the demon, pressing the attack even as he snarled at the pain spreading in his right side as his swings stretched the wound.

The demon, crippled and weaponless, could barely dodge and only slightly block with the pieces of armor it wore. Several more black bolts flew past Maurus, the demon's skin turning a gangrenous black where they hit, further distracting it.

Seeing an opening, Maurus took a pained step forward and smacked aside the demon's arm, before striking the sickly black left side of the demon's chest, the oddly brittle bones breaking easily beneath the mace. The demon gurgled and stumbled, dropping to one knee as a green shimmering ray connected with it. Roaring in pain and rage, Maurus swung his mace at the demons head and straight into the demon's murderous snarl, crushing skull and teeth.

Dropping to one knee, Maurus inhaled shakily, looking around as the demon fell limply on its side, the green ray blinking out.

The battle was more even now when the demons were caught between two sides. To his left, a troll mage worked in tandem with the burly troll warrior, the mage's frost magic harming and hampering their enemies while the warrior took advantage of every opening. To his right, Maurus saw the forsaken warrior and a giant bear pressing the demons hard. The charge Maurus had led had broken the demon's ring and the previously surrounded Horde fighters fought with renewed fervor. Glancing to his right, Maurus saw Arianna take up a stand next to him and continue moved to rise but before he could get up, a loud boom sounded through the garrison, drowning out the battle din, causing him to stumble briefly, eliciting a flare of pain in his side.

He looked around for the source of the noise, but, seeing no explanation, turned his attention back toward the battle. Gritting his teeth, he rose fully and moved back into the battle, ignoring an annoyed, clipped "stop" from the elf behind him.

Retaking his position between the undead warrior and the troll, Maurus aimed fierce swings at the demons both left and right, trying to distract the ones attacking the undead and taking advantage of the cold hampering the ones to the left.

A few moments later, the blue demons suddenly turned to him, two of the giants attacking the him in unison, their huge axes falling in deadly arcs. Only the continued attack of the troll team and the burned forsaken's stubborn and furious attack on the right-hand demon kept Maurus from being overwhelmed.

Around them the demons had recovered from the unexpected charge of more Horde fighters and now neither side had a clear advantage. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of blood, and shouts, screams and the clang of metal on metal reverberated around them.

Maurus ducked under an axe blade and lashed out after the demon's arm. He was breathing heavily, every breath and movement provoking spikes of pain from his wound. Deflecting an overhand swing off his shield and side-stepping to avoid another, he suddenly heard a loud blaring of horns, the deep thunder of drums and a chorus of howling.

As the horns, drums and howling grew nearer; a cheer went up among the Horde, even as an air of nervousness spread among the demons.

Maurus blocked an attack with his shield and the forsaken warrior seized the opening, stabbing upwards into the ribcage of the demon. As the demon collapsed, the two warriors shared a savage grin before engaging another demon in unison. Maurus' grin got even wider as he spotted a large group of Horde warriors emerging from the forest, mostly orcs, but also a few other races. They were all mounted, most on large timber wolves and some on kodos, several of the kodo-riders beating a savage rhythm on the war drums mounted on the kodos' sides.

The mounted warriors crashed into the demons to the sound of drums, howling and deafening cries of "Lok'tar ogar!"

Having glanced briefly at the arriving reinforcement, Maurus only barely managed to get his shield up in time to block an attack from the demon in front of him. The blow was so powerful that his shield was forced back toward him, smacking him in the face and overbalancing him, sending him tumbling to fall flat on his back, his breath forced from him and his side exploding with pain.

With his sight blurry and his head spinning, he dazedly observed the demon as it roared and moved to attack, only for it to be intercepted by the burned forsaken and getting hit by several magic bolts.

Large winged shapes now moved through the air, shrill screams and deep roars announcing that wind riders had engaged the flying succubi.

Maurus followed the battle as he fumbled blindly for his mace, absently noting his armour sticking uncomfortably to his side as his hand closed around the weapon's grip. Shaking his head, he forced himself up and back into the fight, roaring a challenge at the demon that had knocked him to the ground.

The rest of the battle was over quickly, the demons now outnumbered, surrounded and overwhelmed by the mounted warriors. As the last demon fell, the mounted Horde immediately continued further into the garrison, leaving the conscripts alone except for a couple of orc shamans, who began seeing to those with the worst injuries while one of the riders, a small dark-skinned female orc, called for the remaining foot soldiers to gather and follow her after the other riders.

Maurus turned to join the gathering fighters when he felt a hand on his arm.

"Stop, cow. You're injured," Arianna said irritably.

He stopped and staggered, overcome with a wave of dizziness.

"I'm fine," Maurus murmured, closing his eyes briefly. He was finding it hard to ignore the pain in his side and head now that the battle rage was fading. And the dizziness  _was_  getting worse.

"No, go to the healers," the elf insisted, stepping around him to block his path.

Looking at the elf, the tauren noticed how worn and tired she looked. She was spattered with dirt, soot and blood and looked completely drained, a sickly pallor to her skin and dark rings under her eyes, eyes which went pointedly to his right side. When he touched it gingerly, his hand came away wet with blood.

"Now, we talk to the healers and then continue in the opposite direction," the elf added, giving him a light push in his left shoulder and then moving in the direction she had indicated.

Maurus hesitated, and then turned and walked the few steps back to the shamans, who were busily healing some of the injured. He put away his mace and severely dented shield and then gingerly moved his ruined armor out of the way in order to examine the wound in his side.

It wasn't as deep as he'd feared. His shield had taken the brunt of the attack and stopped the weapon from really cleaving into his stomach. However, it was still something of a miracle that he hadn't spilled his guts during the fighting, as the wound was deep enough to go through his thick layer of muscle and fat.

Arianna looked intently at the wound and said as much: "You have the luck of a demon." She shook her head and rummaged in her cloak. "Take this, we can't have you collapsing now," she added, pulling another glowing green rock from a pouch and casually holding it out to him.

Maurus grimaced in pain as he felt at the wound and felt that his entire right side was matted with blood. "Fine," he said, accepting the magic token and crushing the brittle stone in his hand, bracing for the effects.

Snakes of searing heat moved through his body, a heartbeat later drowned out by the feeling of fire burning his wounds shut. Again, intense nausea gripped him and he gagged violently, but he managed to stop himself from vomiting. The short experience left him breathing heavily, dizzy from blood loss and with the taste of bile in his mouth.

"Now you're not going to bleed to death, but still, leave the demons to the soldiers for now" Arianna said.

Maurus glared at her before sighing. "Fine," he mumbled.

"Halt," a voice sounded. Glancing towards the voice, Maurus saw that the wolf rider leading the conscripts had stopped her ragtag unit at the sight of another wolf rider approaching. The new arrival spoke in a ragged, but clear voice: " The bridge is gone. The demons were stopped from crossing the river."

Maurus exhaled in relief, and some of the tension left Arianna's posture. Several of the fighters in the hastily gathered unit cheered, but most simply slumped and began murmuring among themselves.

Maurus let his gaze sweep over what was left of the garrison. Now that he was calming down, he really noticed the bodies littering the ground, horrifically damaged, ripped or cut open, burned, or sporting injuries only magic could cause. Several soldiers were spreading out among the corpses, looking for fallen comrades and finishing off crippled demons. Over by the ruined barricade, the forsaken who had fought with him for most of the battle stood, head bowed, unmoving as only the dead could be.

Maurus averted his gaze, his mouth dry.

"Are you alright?" he mumbled.

"I'm fine. It's not me who almost lost my insides," Arianna said dismissively.

Maurus huffed, then winced, prompting Arianna to raise an eyebrow.

"You should grab the shamans' attention," Arianna said quietly, her tone slightly warmer.

"I'm not dying anytime soon. I can wait," Maurus responded, carefully sitting down and observing the shamans working.

"If this ends in disaster, it's on your head," Arianna answered airily, settling down next to him.

Maurus closed his eyes and sighed loudly, only to wince and growl in annoyance when he felt a hand connect with his neck, hard.

"And do  _not_  fall asleep. I saw you take that hit. You are not sleeping till the shamans have your head back to at least moderately functioning."

The tauren glared at the elf, but tilted his head in acknowledgement. Then he turned his attention back to the very busy healers and prepared himself for a long wait.


	7. Offers, Obligation and Observations

Ashenvale Adventures

Offers, Obligation and Observations

Maurus rubbed his eyes and yawned widely, only to wince as the movement stretched the skin around his recently closed wound. It had been a long, hectic night and with the danger gone, he felt the weariness creep into his body. His limbs ached, his head throbbed and even keeping his eyes open took effort. In front of him, the shamans worked with brisk efficiency on those wounded who had been deemed too unstable to move.

Off to the left of the wounded, Maurus could see four orcs and a troll walking slowly among the bodies, briskly finishing off any demon who still twitched. Several more groups moved about the garrison, doing the same or gathering demon and mortal corpses. The Horde corpses were moved carefully and laid out next to each other, while the demons were piled haphazardly in an already smoldering mound.

"Cowards." The tone was venomous.

Maurus turned his head to look at Arianna, his brow furrowed. The elf sat next to him, her arms crossed over her chest. She was scowling and her mouth was twisted with distaste.

"What?" Maurus asked, a slight growl in his voice.

"The Kal'dorei," she answered, her tone unchanged. "See arrows in the demons," the elf continued, "those are not Horde arrows."

Maurus turned his gaze back to the many bodies. Now that he actually paid attention to the arrows, many of them didn't look like anything he had ever seen any Horde use. They were intricately crafted, their slender, elegant design a stark contrast to the crude, but brutally efficient projectiles the Horde favored.

"True," he murmured, his tone neutral, as he turned back to Arianna. "Caldorai doesn't sound like Orcish," he added. He had an idea what it might mean, but he would let the elf explain. It probably wouldn't take more than that slight prompting.

"The Kal'dorei," she said, correcting Maurus' pronunciation somewhat demonstratively, "are what you call night elves."

Maurus nodded and gave an acknowledging grunt, his assumption confirmed. "At least they helped," he said, but it came out tired. Fatigued and sore as he was, he wasn't feeling very grateful. Wasn't it possible that there would have been fewer dead and wounded if the night elves had spent less time staying out of harm's way and instead committed fully to the battle, making the demons split their forces more?

"The tree-lovers only helped because stopping the demons is the one thing everyone sane can agree on. Don't be surprised if next time you see those arrows, it is in Horde warriors," Arianna answered, shooting another glare at the nearest arrow-festooned demon.

" _And yet some people keep bringing demons into the world_ ," Maurus thought. He refrained from voicing the thought however, partly out of courtesy to Arianna for helping him and keeping him alive yet again, but mostly because he just didn't feel like using the energy to form the words.

Instead, he exhaled heavily, and felt a twinge in his side. At his next inhale, he twitched his muzzle in displeasure. He'd never liked the experience of a field after battle, even when the enemies were as deserving of death as demons or centaurs. The air was heavy with the scent of scorched earth and singed tree and grass and the sullen flame slowly getting more and more of a hold on the demon corpses was spreading a disgusting stink through the air. He let his eyes slide out of focus, blurring the grisly scene all around him. He barely paid any attention to the damp earth underneath him and the foul air, letting most of his mind be occupied with the simple rhythms of his careful breathing and slow heartbeat, while otherwise letting his mind drift.

He grunted a few times when Arianna shifted beside him and checked if he was still conscious, though how she got his attention, probably by hitting or poking him, slipped his mind each time before it could leave any lasting impression.

He was unsure how much time had passed when black hooves stepped into his field of vision. Focusing his eyes and pushing the foggy exhaustion from his mind, he saw that the fur at the ankles was dark grey, vanishing beneath dark, worn leather leggings. Maurus sniffed and caught a hint of some familiar smell and raised his gaze, his mood turning darker as he recognized more and more of the armor. It looked slightly worse for wear and patches of dark blood spotted it. Two ornate hand axes hung at the belt. When his gaze met dark brown eyes framed by black, thick braids, Maurus bared his teeth in a silent snarl.

"Move your hand," Bron Stonehoof said calmly, his eyes sliding from Maurus' face to his side.

At Bron's words, Maurus reacted without thinking, lifting his left hand from where he'd had it resting over the recently healed skin. A heartbeat later, he realized what he'd done and very deliberately put the hand back where it had been, before growling: "What do you want?" As the words left his mouth, the dizziness made itself known again and he put his right hand the ground as he swayed backwards.

"Fel magic is a poor substitute for proper healing," Bron said calmly, idly fingering the handle of one of his axes. There was a delicate snort from Arianna but she remained silent.

"I don't need your charity," Maurus spat.

"Let me do what I must, as a healer," Bron said again, the slightest hint of tension in his voice and stance.

"Let me have my trophy and my recognition," Maurus snapped, his eyes narrowed to angry slits.

Bron blew out a violent breath through his nose.

"I will heal you," he began, his tone like steel, and held up a flat hand sternly when Maurus opened his mouth to respond, without pausing his speech, "and when I'm done, I will use my gift on anyone else I can help."

Bron's braids shook slightly when he tilted his head in the general direction of the wounded. Maurus' angry retort died on his lips, the words seeming petulant and ungrateful in light of Bron's words. He moved his hand and turned his gaze away as the grey-furred tauren kneeled beside him, putting large, warm hands on the scarlet-stained white fur.

Arianna glanced at Maurus and rolled her eyes as a grass-green light bloomed in the corner of his' eye. A low rhythmic murmur spilled from Bron's lips, and pleasant warmth, like the warmth of the spring sun in Mulgore, spread over his side, washing away the lingering feeling of feverish heat that Maurus only noticed as it vanished. The odd feeling of tissue sliding under his skin made the experience uncomfortable, but a distinct sensation of everything falling into its proper place made up for the discomfort. The aches diminished somewhat, before the warmth receded and the glow faded. Bron withdrew his hands and Maurus let out a pleased breath, only to jerk his head away when dark fingers appeared over his right eye. The sudden motion dizzied him and calloused, cool skin pushed on his shoulder, pushing him back towards Bron.

"I'm not done yet," Bron said flatly, and Maurus grit his teeth against the annoyance and the spinning in his head, letting the shaman place his hands on his brow. Green filled his vision and warmth seeped into his head, clearing it and taking away the pounding. It lasted for a long series of heartbeats, and then Bron removed his hands, his leather armor creaking slightly as he rose. He lingered for a moment, before Maurus swallowed something bitter and nodded stiffly. Then the grey-furred shaman turned and walked away, leaving Maurus and Arianna without another word.

"Rejecting free healing is foolish," Arianna said when the tauren was out of earshot. There was a small note of exasperation there, if Maurus wasn't completely mistaken. He just flicked an ear in annoyance and didn't reply, enjoying the relief of all his significant injuries having been healed while internally wrestling with the aggravating thought that he should be grateful to that deceitful shaman. He leaned back on his arms, glancing around the ruined outpost.

He should probably get up and help with the cleanup, but he would get to that in a moment. The ones working seemed to be doing fine for now.

* * *

 

"What does he want?" Arianna said some time later, not really sounding like she cared. Maurus was jerked from his thoughts when the elf spoke and he spotted the forsaken heading their way as the elf finished her sentence. He pushed himself to his feet, standing up to his full height as the undead warrior reached them, stopping to stand rigidly two feet in front of the tauren, his face empty of any emotion.

Now that they weren't fighting for their lives, Maurus had time to notice how the forsaken looked. He was clad in simple, dark brown leather and matte black mail, his shoulder plates carved into simple skull designs like most of the morbid forsaken preferred.

His spine showed through holes in his throat and what was visible of his left hand was all bone, his fingers sharpened into claws. His pale, withered skin had cracked in the fire he had been hit with, but it was no longer blackened. The major burn damage had apparently been healed as best it could, leaving only dried black fluid that the forsaken hadn't bothered to remove. His sword was in a sheath at his side, his shield slung over his back. The forsaken's sunken, milky eyes flicked from Maurus to Arianna before he spoke, his raspy words quiet and serious:

"Thank you, warlock, for helping me avenge my friend."

"You're welcome," Arianna droned. "Killing those demons was my pleasure."

"Still," the undead warrior said, nodding at her, "it was an honor and pleasure to fight beside you both. Your bravery is inspiring. I am Mathias and I salute you."

He struck a hand against his chest as he spoke, and Maurus copied him, nodding.

"You fight with ferocity and courage," Maurus said. "I'm sorry for your loss. May the Earth Mother guide his spirit to rest," he added solemnly.

A sad smile stretched the Mathias' thin lips, the expression jarringly different from the grim grins he'd worn in the heat of battle and the blank mask he'd had until this part in the conversation.

"Two years ago, I would have scoffed at that," he said, a pensive note in his voice. He turned his head slightly and took the first breath Maurus had seen him take since he'd approached them. "Now, I thank you for your words."

Maurus smiled slightly. The formal warrior didn't seem quite as bitter as he'd expected of a forsaken.

"Should you ever need my help or find yourself in Lordaeron, I'm at your disposal."

Maurus' eyebrows rose in surprise. He hadn't expected the forsaken to consider it a debt of honor.

"Thank you, we'll keep that in mind," Arianna said, her tone slightly less indifferent.

"Yes," Maurus said belatedly. "And likewise, should you need help; we'll see what we can do."

Mathias snorted and turned from them, taking a step as he said: "Then, till we-"

He was interrupted by a deep baritone calling out to them:

"Hey, you three, follow me."

Maurus bristled at the order and turned to look at the large, pale orc marching towards them. His face had three wide scars, the top one stretching from just above the left eye down to his wide chin. His nose had not been healed fully, leaving him missing most of his left nose. Similar scars were visible through the tattered remains of spiked, black armor.

"Why?" Maurus questioned, before either Arianna or Mathias could react.

"Zolan wants to see ya," the orc answered, his tone making it obvious that he didn't care for the stubborn glint in Maurus' eyes and the tension in his stance.

Mathias shrugged, and began walking towards the newly arrived orc, sending a quick glance back towards his dead companion as he did so. Arianna let out an almost inaudible sigh and got up, her light clothing whispering against the earth.

"Come on, cow, let us see what the troll wants."

Maurus sighed, loudly, and followed the elf as she went over to the orc, who turned with an impatient motion and started walking quickly back towards the river.

They circled the burnt-out barracks. The lower stone wall still stood, blackened but intact, with a few smoldering wooden pillars stabbing up into the gloom like broken bones. The rest of the buildings were in similar states. The garrison was broken, useless without the dwellings and guard towers. And though the horde of demons hadn't overrun the yet, they were probably still somewhere in the Demon Fall Canyons, ready to attack soon.

Maurus was thankfully distracted from the dark thoughts when they rounded the barracks and the river came into view. His eyes widened as he looked toward the bridge. Or what was left of it. Through the splintered remains of the wooden wall, he saw only small stumps of blackened wood jutting out a feet over the roaring river.

"Spirits," he breathed. Arianna raised an eyebrow beside him, but said nothing. The forsaken ahead of them cocked his head quizzically before shrugging again.

"Goblins?" Maurus asked the leading orc as he led them to the left of the bridge where most of the newly arrived forces had gathered. The orc chuckled and said:

"Military secret."

Maurus' lips twitched as the group weaved through the throng of bodies, dodging agitated soldiers and restless animals. The musky smell of wolves and the heavy scent of kodos filled the air, the normally unpleasant smells a relief after the foul smoke and blood and sulfurous stink blowing from Felfire Hills.

They quickly reached their destination; a group of large tents hastily erected a distance from the riverbank. Inside, a group of wounded grunts were lying on blankets in various stages of consciousness, all of them attended by shamans and druids and even two undead priests. A steady stream of melodious murmuring and rasping chanting mixed with the groans of pain and the odd sharp intake of breath.

The orc led them into an area sectioned off from the rest of the grunts, where three familiar people were gathered.

Off to the side, attended to by a porcelain-pale, white-haired forsaken priestess, lay Seran, trembling violently, his eyes closed. Gruesome burns covered much of his body and not much remained of his clothing. The priestess' hands, positioned over the old orcs chest, cast a golden light, tinged with flickers of darkness, over the shaking orc. The healing radiance mixed with the violent, purple flaring around the orb held in Seran's frail fingers, almost as if the light was trying to escape the stone.

Arianna let out a small, intrigued humming sound and Maurus glanced at her in confusion, before letting his gaze drift on.

Two large orc shamans and a wide green glow almost completely obscured the massive orc Garon, but Maurus caught a glimpse of the orc's face, contorted in pain, over the shoulder of the left shaman.

Zolan sat to Garon's right, his bare chest showing off a web of scars, while a blue-skinned troll woman with a wild, orange ponytail shone healing light at his leg, which looked crushed. He had only one tusk left and the ragged hole in his check showed that several teeth had been lost when the tusk had been ripped from its socket. Maurus caught worry in the troll's eyes only for a heartbeat before the troll noticed them and grinned widely.

"Thanks, soldier," he said, and the orc who'd come get Maurus, Arianna and Mathias saluted swiftly and left.

"Welcome, Maurus, Arianna. Didn't get ya name dead guy, but welcome anyway," he continued, waving a hand that was missing a finger.

"Mathias, Zolan," the undead said curtly.

"Well, good to meet ya Mathias," the troll leader said amiably, before his face grew more serious.

"I'm glad you survived. You looked hard-pressed against the dreadlord," Maurus said, glancing to Garon as he let out a low, pained grunt.

Zolan's expression darkened.

"Barely," he growled, his eyes flicking to the old orc on the other side of Garon, "Seran used everything he had to stop the infernals and the cursed demon leader vanished when the bridge blew up."

His eyes narrowed and his voice became a low, dangerous rumble: "He took four of us, almost got us three too. He butchered Vollana and Magdor on his retreat."

"Your survival is a feat in itself," Arianna said. "A demon of that power is on a whole other level than most mortals."

The cloud of anger vanished from Zolan's face and he gave the elf a small grin.

"Ya did quite well yourself, from what I hear, though meant you should run away, not into combat."

"We were getting the others," Mathias said, putting emphasis on the last three words. Zolan raised an eyebrow, his grin widening.

"So you followed orders  _and_ took initiative," he said, nodding repeatedly with an exaggerated thoughtful look on his face.

"Wasn't really trying to follow your orders," Maurus said neutrally.

"That's very close to insubordination," the troll said, his tone still amiable.

"Which you obviously are not going to do anything about," Arianna said flatly. She moved her hand in a circle and said expectantly: "Now."

"The garrison's dead, we've lost a lot of manpower. The demons are massing. But there's good news." No-one spoke when Zolan paused for effect. Everyone merely looked at him impatiently.

"They're finally going to do something about the Hills. We're gonna wipe them out, just as soon as the thing's organized."

"And what do you want with us?" Maurus said impatiently.

"Ya got some guts and skill. We'd have lost if not for you and we'd have lost those at the back if not for ya," he chuckled, "creative interpretation of my orders."

Maurus frowned. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Arianna's face become an impassive mask, while a cruel, bloodthirsty grin spread across Mathias' face. Maurus only felt unease at what he expected was coming next.

"I'm giving you a command. I want to give ya'll a chance to do the Horde a service."


	8. Rock and Thunder

Ashenvale Adventures

Rock and Thunder

The whetstone slid down the edge of the axe with a soft metallic rasp, almost inaudible against the din of the camp, a rising and falling drone of shouting, talking, laughter, fires crackling and beasts howling, growling and rumbling. The steady rhythm of stone against steel was comforting, a simple, mindless task to focus on.

Maurus felt cold, despite the bonfire bathing him in warm light. It was another moonless night and the air seemed colder than it should, chilling his mail and creeping through the cloth and fur beneath. There was foulness on each breath he took, a hint of corruption that was never overpowered by the smells of the camp, no matter how heavy the stench of the moving army became.

Half the men from the broken garrison had made a hurried march the long way round the Hills to join the Warsong contingent at the Warsong Lumber Camp. The combined army had crossed the still intact bridge at the lumber camp and met no resistance as they traveled through the Hills. Tonight was the last night before they entered the Canyon and Maurus and the rest of the wanderers and mercenaries were to be the first ones in.

The whetstone slid to a stop. He hadn't fought in canyons and caves in years, not since the trials in Thunder Ridge and back then his opponents had been simple beasts, with no tactics beyond trampling and electrocuting their enemies. He raised his head and looked towards their destination. In the gloom, past the few scraggly, twisted trees that dotted the Hills, the sheer cliffs were blocks of solid shadow, so faint in the darkness that he wasn't sure if he could actually make them out or just imagined the shapes stabbing like daggers into the night sky.

" _What have I gotten myself into?"_  he thought, swallowing. He tightened his grip on the handle of the axe and gritted his teeth, digging up anger from deep within. It was preferable to the alternative.

He turned his gaze away from the cliffs and put the whetstone against his axe again. The flickering firelight gleamed in the black surface of the metal as he slid the whetstone down the edge of the weapon, one, two, three times, before a shadow fell over him.

He raised his gaze from the weapon and saw a thin, feminine form, silhouetted against the bonfire, knife-like ears arcing behind the head like horns. Her eyes glowed with dim green fire, the same flame that danced in the crystal topping the staff clenched in one hand. The monstrous hound a little to the left only added to the demonic impression.

"I doubt the axe can get any sharper than that," Arianna said, the casual comment abruptly dispelling the sinister impression. Maurus lowered the stone, absently dropping it into the backpack at his side. He didn't answer the elf.

"Don't," she groaned and Maurus glanced down. He had been about to run a thumb along the edge of the axe, but had stopped when she spoke. He laid his hand flat on the head of the axe instead and returned his gaze to the elf, giving her a flat look.

"Are you ready?" the elf asked, taking a step forwards and to the side, letting the light fall on Maurus again now that she had his attention. She was still dressed in red, but this gown was thicker, with sleeves, and as she sat, Maurus could see she wore trousers under the garment. Several pouches hung at her waist.

"We're bait," Maurus said quietly, his voice gruff. Zolan could pretty it up as much as he liked, but the truth was that the first unit into the canyons was meant to draw out the enemy or spring the first ambush.

"Yes," Arianna answered, taking seat beside him, the felhound lying down beside her.

"That's all you have to say?" Maurus groused, turning to look at the elf.

"What else is there? We do what we must for our people," the elf replied, a faint edge of tension in her voice, her eyes narrowed slightly. "You could have walked away."

Maurus stared into the fire and wondered for a moment why he had accepted Zolan's offer, before shoving the thought aside. He knew why. Had he declined, it would have made him a hypocrite and a coward. That he would not be.

"No," he said firmly, "I couldn't."

"Good."

Maurus took a deep breath, straightening his back, and said: "It needs to be done. Should have been done ages ago."

"And now it finally happens," Arianna said. There was an unspoken question, a why, in those words.

Maurus would have liked to say that the attack on the garrison had finally been too much of a provocation, but he realized it probably wasn't as simple as that. He snorted.

"I don't care, so long as it gets done."

Arianna shrugged as she dug into one of the pouches at her waist, pulling out a familiar dark stone that pulsed with weak green light. She held it out to Maurus and he wrinkled his nose at it. It radiated a foulness similar to the one in the air, yet different and stronger. He hesitated for a moment and she rolled her eyes.

"Take the health stone, cow, before I change my mind."

In his opinion, there was not much healthy about that stone. He snorted, half-amused, but he accepted the stone, slipping it into a pocket by his belt.

"I haven't got anything to offer you in return," Maurus rumbled.

Arianna smirked and said: "Just keep placing yourself between me and things trying to kill me, that shall suffice. You should be able to handle that."

She got to her feet, Ash leaping up from where he lay to walk ahead of her.

"Get some sleep," Arianna advised as she began to walk away.

"Thank you," Maurus said. He didn't speak the words very loudly, but the elf raised a hand in acknowledgement as she passed the bonfire, waving them off.

When she vanished from sight, Maurus looked into the fire for a time, letting his troubles fade away in the dancing light searing his eyes, before finally lying down on his bedroll to sleep. It would be a short rest, and uncomfortable in the armor, but he dared not take it off so close to the enemy. Before the fear could creep into him again, he was asleep.

* * *

 

It seemed like he'd only just closed his eyes when he woke to a grey and weak dawn, his muscles stiff and sore. He groggily got up, forced down a meager breakfast and a skin of wine and the morning passed in a daze as they broke camp, before he found himself walking at the front of the ragtag unit. The light had not grown much stronger since dawn, as the sun had swiftly vanished behind the clouds, so the day seemed a lifeless grey as Maurus passed between the cliffs, rising like teeth on either side. The sparse, coarse grass that had managed to survive in the Hills had given up the fight in the Canyon, like all other vegetation, so the ground was a dead path of rock and slate, cracked with fissures that breathed sickly green smoke. It made Maurus' eyes water and his nostrils burned with the stink of brimstone and some undefinably rot. It wasn't long before he felt a building pressure in his skull and the mace and shield in his hands quickly began to feel heavier than they should.

The elf, walking on his left side, did not seem as bothered by the fumes. Her back was straight and her gaze was clear and focused. Neither did Mathias seem affected. He had joined them at the front of the group and now walked in the hunched over stoop so common among the undead, his blade and shield ready, an eagerness in his step. The felhunter prowling around Ariannas legs seemed almost invigorated.

"I wish you'd tell me your secret," Maurus said.

Mathias made an inquiring grunt and Arianna raised an eyebrow.

"How are you fine here?" Maurus asked, a slight grumble in the words.

Mathias shrugged and said: "I'm dead. And I spent a while in the Plaguelands with an apothecary."

Maurus eyed Mathias for a moment, then turned to Arianna. She looked pointedly at the poison green flame at the end of her staff, before gesturing at Ash and dryly saying: "Long years of exposure. Though I suspect that isn't what something you want to contemplate."

"Those options aren't quite what I hoped for. And they're somewhat time-consuming." Maurus sighed and Mathias gave him a mildly alarming grin, the expression pulling his dry skin tight over his skull. Maurus snorted and added emphatically: "And I like breathing. So that option is out too."

Mathias shrugged again.

"You'll just have to endure then," Arianna said and the trio fell silent again.

Left to his own thoughts, Maurus again began to notice his discomfort.  _"At least I'm not suffering alone,"_ he thought. Most of the warriors behind him, in a loose column eight people wide, looked like he thought he did, faces twisted in distaste, eyes alert, trudging forward in sullen silence. They had been as rowdy this morning as the day before, but now that they were far into the canyon, the dark walls looming on both sides strangled conversation almost as quickly as they could begin. The only sounds around him were the hiss of the fissures, the clamor of armor and weapons and the steady rumble of footsteps.

Maurus rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, peering towards the tops of the ridges around him, searching for any sign of the demons, even if it felt rather pointless. Guth and his men would likely spot any demon long before he did. The orc himself was walking beside Arianna, bright eyes peering out from the burned ruin that was his face, one hand holding his gleaming axe, the other pushed through the strap of a shield and grasping a warhorn ripped from the skull of some demon, ready to signal for the reinforcements at a moments notice.

Ahead, through the haze of smoke, Maurus saw the canyon walls pull away, vanishing to either side to create a wide open area of rocky ground. A roughly carved monolith rose from the ground in the center of the area and at the sight, Maurus felt his chest swell with heady admiration. He could feel the emotion that spread through the group as the people around him noticed, lifting the pall that had covered them.

A deafening boom split the air, the sound seeming hang in the air unnaturally long. It took Maurus a moment to realize that the sound wasn't lingering, but that it was a series of explosions sounding in such quick succession that they melded into one continuous roar. His eyes darted upwards and his breath escaped him in an almost painful gasp. On either side of the path, the cliffs had been blown apart in a line halfway up the incline, sending a mass of stone hurtling down the cliff face. Worse still, the cliffs above the long scar gouged out of the cliff were collapsing without the rock below to support it.

It had only taken a stunned second to take it all in, but already the people around him were pushing and jostling to get into the opening ahead. With his pulse pounding in his ears, Maurus surged forward, through a shower of rock and grit that sliced into his exposed skin, even as he shouted, with enough force that his lungs felt raw: "Forward! Forward to the monument, you smelly runts! Run!"

They moved in a mad scramble, the crumbling cliffs rolling down towards the crowd in the canyon with a noise like thunder. Hands pushed and grabbed at Maurus as he ran, everyone springing forward in a panicked run. Maurus kept shouting, bellowing out his fear and anger at the trap, hoping that anyone frozen in panic would react to the words and get to safety. Even as his lungs burned with the effort, he doubted it would work. He could barely hear himself.

He followed the red shape of Ash as the felhunter sprinted forward, well ahead of them. He felt a vague sense of relief at seeing Mathias and Arianna when he glanced to either side, but that relief turned into shame when screams erupted behind him, somehow audible even over the rockslide, and then he was out in the wider space, running headlong towards the monolith marking Hellscream's grave. He didn't slow until the ground dipped down around the monolith. Breathing hard, heart beating rapidly in his chest, he turned around, looking back to the north.

The path they had entered from was obscured by clouds of grey dust, whirled into the air by the mounds of rock that now filled the canyon to half again Maurus' height. Here and there, broken limbs stuck out from the piles, as if grasping for release from the weight crushing them, a few of them twitching disturbingly.

Gathered around Maurus were the pitiful remains of the vanguard. A quick count revealed that just three dozen of more than a hundred had escaped the trap.

"Earth Mother," Maurus said, his voice rough and breathless, nausea in his belly and a hollow feeling in his chest. Then he looked around the hollow they were in and cursed in unison with several others around him. To the east and west, steep paths rose into the cliffs and demons came rushing down the western one, heedless of the danger of their rapid descent. Felhunters surged forward, a mass of red and black and bone, followed by blue giants wielding brutal weapons. Imps capered around their feet, trailing flames and giggling cruelly.

The sight woke him from his shock and, still feeling empty and sick, he reminded himself of his duty.

"To the entrance," he shouted, setting off back the way he had come. "Shooters up top, melee, backs to the rocks!" Thankfully, the group followed with no hesitation and the demons were further away from them than they were from the entrance to the valley. He was about to snap an order to Guth when he heard several short blasts of mournful sound, the warhorn sounding out the call for reinforcements. Only a few short moments later, the group stopped their headlong rush, Maurus and the other warriors turning to face the oncoming demons while the the casters and hunters swiftly climbed the rocks.

It was not a moment too soon. The group had barely gotten into position, a haphazard formation spanning the width of the canyon, when the felhunters reached them. Maurus' shield was little use as defense against the hounds that clung low the ground and he ended up using it as a bludgeon like his mace while he kicked and stomped at the demonic hounds snapping at his legs. Bones cracked and organs squelched under his attacks, the hounds he managed to fatally wound simply crumbling to ash under him.

Multicolored orbs of magic and streaks of lighting soared over his head along with bolts and arrows, swiftly cutting down many approaching imps, but the advancing demons did not even slow. With triumphant roars and wild cackling, the blue giants and the imps reached the battle line and fire and steel crashed into the Horde warriors.

Flame exploded against Maurus' shield, the fireball only blocked by luck and instinct, and then a cleaver almost twice the length of his arm clanged against the shield as one of the giant demons entered the fray. Several warriors around him screamed as they were overwhelmed by the charge, but Maurus paid them little heed, fully occupied with simply defending against the blows the demon rained down on him and trying to avoid the hounds still harrying him.

Steel rang out against steel while flame crackled and magic chimed. A flash of purplish black made the giant stagger and Maurus stomped forward onto a felhound and smashed his mace into the demon's face, caving in its helmet into its skull. The death of the demon bought him no relief though, because a barrage of flame drove him back and a second blue giant stepped over its dead kin and bellowed in challenge.

Maurus roared in return as they clashed. He blocked and dodged, heart hammering, his breaths coming in labored gasps. The second demon did not fall as easily as the first and the demons were pressing their advantage. His shoulder throbbed from an overhand swing that barely missed his head and smashed into his shoulder plate and his shield arm was swiftly growing numb from the effort of defending. He could feel a tremble in his entire body, not entirely caused by his exertion.

Mathias at his side darted in to strike when he could, giving him a heartbeat's relief now and then, but it did little good. Two more agonized cries and a wet gurgle told him the warriors around him were falling. The rangers and casters behind him were exacting a heavy toll on the demons but the line of defenders was being overwhelmed and he realized with icy clarity how it had felt for those he had come to the rescue of back at the garrison.

He almost laughed at the exhilaration he felt when he heard a series of familiar, leonine roars erupt from above him. He deflected a swing of the giant's sword and smacked his shield forward into its nose. It staggered backwards, giving Maurus a view of the demons behind it, just as spears plunged from above, piercing blue giants and hounds alike. Moments later, wyverns crashed down onto the demons in a flutter of leathery wings and lashing tails, attacking them from the rear. One of the wyverns bore a giant to the ground, its jaws closing around the demon's head and wrenching. In the same motion, its troll rider reached out and pulled a spear from the corpse of another demon. A sharp snap sounded and the wyven leapt at another demon, the giant it had savaged lying perfectly still.

The confusion gave Maurus time to he glanced around him. Only a third of his warriors still stood, most of them Guth and his men. There was not much of a formation left and the survivors were in danger of being surrounded and overwhelmed.

"To me!" Maurus bellowed and the remaining warriors gathered around him just as the demons got over their surprise. The tight formation made dodging hard, but the demons were distracted by the wyverns harrying their rear and flanks, not willing or able to crack the purely defensive position.

Time dragged on as Maurus fought, using his bulk to defend Mathias and an unknown orc at his side while they kept the hounds off him. The demons did not even try to edge around the knot of Horde warriors, even though they could now get to the fragile casters. Instead they seemed to be moving away, slowly but surely. A guttural snarl from the middle of the demons had them withdrawing with more speed. With a growl, Maurus lashed out at the demon he and the men around him still hadn't managed to kill, only for his swing to be turned aside by a blade that came hurtling back towards Maurus a heartbeat later. It was only the orc at Maurus' side that saved him, lodging an axe in the demon's arm, making the blow miss Maurus' head by inches.

The shock of it had Maurus taking a step back and before he could recover, the demon was running, keeping up with its fellows while the hounds snapped and barked at the wyverns. A long, low note boomed in the canyon, a different Horde warhorn, announcing more reinforcements. Maurus made to chase the fleeing demons but was stopped by Guth deliberately stepping in front of him. He clenched his fists, blood roaring in his ears and opened his mouth in a snarl.

Guth gave him a flat stare and motioned to Maurus' sides with a tilt of his head and a quick glance. Maurus looked left and right and saw that this little group was in no shape to give chase. The realization sent a burst of cold through his veins and he suddenly noticed the state of his body, fatigued, bleeding and hurting.

Gazing past Guth, he saw that the wyverns were only harrying the fleeing demons, not engaging fully. A few parting shots hurtled after the fleeing demons before they got out of range, but most of them missed. A few more felhounds were picked off by the wind riders before both demons and wind riders vanished into the cliffs.

"Too many of us," Mathias muttered, adding with cold intensity, "too few of them."

Maurus' gaze flicked to Mathias, thankfully uninjured, and then to the corpse-strewn ground around them. Aside from eight dead blue giants, the dead were all Horde.

"Most of them were summons," Mathias added grimly, dragging a foot through the ash blanketing the area.

" _So many dead just to reach the Monument, and most of our enemies just vanished into the Nether,"_ he thought, bile rising in his throat. Not trusting himself to speak, he turned to climb up the rocks, the empty feeling in his chest remaining. The casters and rangers on the rocks looked weary and shocked, but mostly unharmed, though a blackened, tusked corpse and a bloody, savaged orc showed that the defensive line had not protected them well enough. Annistrianna was leaning on her staff, finally looking as uncomfortable as the rest of the unit had looked the whole day. The petty thought and the corpses around him made cold shame roil in his gut as he remembered the bold words he'd spoken of reclaiming this place.

He climbed up beside her, gave her a quick once-over that assured him she was unhurt and silently looked back the way they had come from, slinging his shield onto his back and hanging his mace in his belt.

A mass of Horde soldiers, all clad in the red, spiked armor of the Horde's standing armies, were making their way over the uneven mounds of rubble. No mounted warriors braved the precarious footing the broken rocks offered. At the front of the advancing soldiers was Zolan, nimbly picking his way forward. His face was impassive, but his eyes darted to the few limbs protruding from the rubble. Neither Seran nor Garon was with him. Neither had recovered from their injuries in time for the march.

When the large troll reached them, he swept his gaze over the dead and the living alike, nodded to himself and then looked at Maurus and Arianna.

"Ya're alive. Good."

Arianna and the casters around her saluted him with fists raised to their chests but Maurus gave him no such acknowledgement. He glowered at the commander, anger and cold grief and shame making him lower his head and shoulders in an aggressive stance, ready to charge.

"Only a few of us," he growled.

"Some though," Zolan said. "That's better than expected, but just as I hoped. Good work."

Maurus bared his teeth and Zolan narrowed his eyes, cutting off Maurus before could voice his anger, his tone hard as steel: "Make no mistake, tauren. We're storming a fortress. Lotsa people gonna die. Ya were the opening strike, an' ya did real well. Ya not even dead."

He looked Maurus up and down and added: "Don't even got any large holes."

The Horde soldiers were passing by them now, pooling down into the valley around the Hellscream Monument and spreading out, assembling into tight groups facing either west or east. Maurus rolled his shoulders and felt his armor brush over the bruising and metal burns. He glanced at Arianna and realized that since he'd met the elf, he'd experienced more burns than he had in his entire life.

"Feel like roast pork though," he said grimly. The words hung in the air for a moment before a hoarse chuckle burst from his lips and just like that, most of the tension drained from him. The boiling anger in his veins simmered down and his thoughts cleared enough that he no longer felt the urge to break Zolan's nose.

A crooked smile curled Zolan's lips around his remaining tusk.

"I know the feeling, ya get used to it," he said wryly. He gave a little shake of his head and continued: "We got a foothold now, let's use it."

Zolan sent them to the front of the soldiers preparing to go east and went off in search of the windriders. An hour later, Maurus and the remains of his unit crested the slope, at the front of the soldiers, joined by seven of the goblins that had arrived by windrider. The explosion-obsessed greenskins were under orders to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe in the canyon below. Neither the goblin race's reputation for mayhem nor their excited, squeaky voices inspired confidence in their ability to  _prevent_ explosions but Maurus chose not to voice his misgivings.

The demons came upon them a hundred steps into the canyon, the attack vicious and fast but with no real weight behind it and with the mass of soldiers at Maurus' back, the attack was driven off pretty easily. That was only the first attack and they slowly fought their way through the dark cliffs. Sometimes, the demons came screaming from the front, other times they leapt from overhanging rocks. Quite a few of the ambushes were discovered by the windriders, who turned the tables on the ambushers by either attacking them first or informing the advancing soldiers. But after the eighth ambush so disrupted, the windriders were met by flocks of succubi and the ground troops had to mostly fend for themselves from then on.

The most dangerous ambushes were heralded by explosions. Half a dozen times, the demons put the goblins to shame by emerging from openings that were blasted out of the cliff face, ripping apart soldiers and creating brief panic during which the demons surged out into the flank of the force. Worse, each such opening required men to stay behind to guard the entrance, spreading the soldiers thinner than Maurus would have liked and the need to be on constant guard for attacks from the sides and rear slowed their advance.

The only thing buoying Maurus' worsening mood was that fewer and fewer of the demons they killed crumbled to dust. He began sharing grim, satisfied looks with Mathias whenever one of their kills fell to the ground, bloody and broken, but staying solid. Each one that didn't dissolve into ash was one less soldier for the Legion.

Finally, with a full third of their strength either dead or left behind to guard tunnel entrances, the terrain changed. The canyon widened into a huge bowl of cracked and blackened stone, thick with acrid fumes and the feel of corruption, making the air of the rest of the canyon seem clean and crisp in comparison. There were numerous structures along the cliffs. They looked like orc buildings, though harsher and crueler in shape and with none of the warmth and life he'd come to associate with orc architecture. On the far side of the valley, three cave openings were visible, yawning black maws that made Maurus' heartbeat quicken. The valley was devoid of life though, deadly still but for the echoes of the approaching soldiers. Maurus slowed and shouted: "Halt!"

He marveled at the fact that he had basically been put in charge of this advance as his order was obeyed. The force behind him came to a stop with a clatter of metal as he stopped at the entrance to the valley. He warily watched the sky and cliffs for demons, but found none, but it did nothing to help his unease. At least the rocks didn't rise as high above the canyon floor here and another rockslide was unlikely, or at least, so he hoped.

"Not what I expected," he said, puzzled. He'd actually hoped the demons were waiting for them. A proper battle would have taken his mind off of his pounding head, his stinging eyes and the itch in his nose. He glanced to the people around him. Guth and Arianna both looked thoughtful, though it was a stark contrast between the elf's slightly narrowed eyes and wrinkled brow and the twisted grimace Guth's square, scarred face made of the expression.

Mathias just looked impatient, rotating his sword it constantly changed which edge was towards the ground.

"What are we waiting for?" he muttered irritably. Maruus held out a hand to stop Mathias when he made to go ahead and Mathias sent a questioning look his way.

"Something's wrong," Maurus said simply.

A poke in his shin made him look down upon a huge beak of a green nose, beady, excited eyes and a wide grin. A shock bright red hair stood up in wild tufts and spots of soot were all over her face, as if a bomb had gone off in her face.  _"Maybe it has"_ , Maurus thought wryly.

"Time for us, Boss," she said, "earth's been disturbed, look!" She pointed out into the valley, but Maurus failed to see the difference between the uneven ground here and that of the rest of the Canyon.

He raised an eyebrow as he returned his gaze to the goblin, but she had already turned away, slinging the huge pack she carried down onto the ground. She withdrew a lump of metal the size of his torso from the pack while the rest of the goblins pulled short pipes and a collection of tools from their belts and backpacks, one of them spilling out a small pile of bolts. Clangs, whirring and high-pitched giggles emerged from the engineers as they worked.

"They always manage to unnerve me," Maurus said.

"Their enthusiasm? Or that the only things they always make work are the ones that explode?" Arianna asked.

"Both," Maurus muttered, though a slight smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth.

"I heard that!" one goblin called.

"Good!" the redheaded one shouted and this time both Maurus and the men around him chuckled.

A minute of frantic activity passed and then the goblins stood back, letting their creation, something that looked like a metallic spider, though with only four spindly, wobbly legs, walk with surprising speed into the valley. A handle on the back of the metal body slowly turned as it moved.

A persistent, rhythmic sound made Maurus ask: "Is it ticking?"

"Yes," the redheaded goblin said happily. Everyone took a step back and Maurus squinted warily as he followed the spider's movements.

They watched as the spider winded its way into the valley. Despite its speed, it seemed to take a long time. Then it stopped and stood, quaking and leaking steam for a moment.

"Uh-oh."

Maurus reacted to the apprehensive exclamation almost as fast as the goblins drew back. He swept his arms backward as he took several quick steps back and yelled: "Back! Shields up!"

His attempt to push those at his sides turned out to be meaningless as they had reacted as fast as him. He dropped to one knee, set his shoulders and brought up his shield in front of his face and it was not a moment too soon. The flash of blinding light seemed to hang in the air for a single moment before Maurus for the second time that day heard hundreds of explosions going off in a continuous roar. The valley lit up, fire searing through the gloom, the sound hitting Maurus like a solid thing.

The flames washed over him and he became instantly aware of every bit of exposed skin and fur on his body. The pain made him gasp out a breath and it took an effort of will to not instantly inhale but he gritted his teeth and held himself still.

It only lasted for a few excruciating heartbeats and when the flames vanished, Maurus gulped in a breath of air that almost felt scorching. He dimly registered his leathers feeling uncomfortably warm and that his weapons, mail and amour were just short of burning hot.

With eyes that stung from the heat and pain of his burns, Maurus glanced around him. Guth and his men, and Mathias, stood at his sides in the same stance as him. Their shields glowed with fine red runes that hadn't been there a minute ago, but they seemed unharmed. Maurus found that immensely unfair and promised himself he'd look into that magic later.

When he looked behind himself, he found Arianna and the goblins, huddled behind his bulk. Soot clung to their clothes and hair, but they looked mostly unhurt. The same went for the rest of the closest soldiers, most of who had managed to put some distance between them and the valley. Though he spied smoking hair, blackened skin and scorched clothes, it seemed no-one was fatally wounded. In fact, Maurus realized as he looked back at the front line, he might be the one most wounded. The fires had not traveled far outside the valley.

He stepped back into the valley and immediately realized that the fire had burned almost all of the fumes away. Most of the ground had been upended and sunk half a feet lower.

"Gas build-up. We didn't think about it." The words were hard to hear over the ringing in his ears. The redheaded goblin looked inordinately pleased with herself and her eyes were glazed with excitement. "Good thing you had us to disarm that."

"That was disarming?" Arianna asked.

"Goblin," Mathias simply and she conceded the point with a nod.

"So, thanks to us, you're not blown up or roasted to a crisp," the goblin added, cheerfully ignoring Arianna's and Mathias' comments. Her complete nonchalance to the painful death they had just barely avoided was disconcerting, but Maurus latched on to a single word in that sentence as he finally realized that the smell of scorched skin and fur was mostly himself. Relief and adrenaline bubbled up into his chest and burst out in a harsh laugh: "Ha! Roast pork! again!"

Arianna looked at him as he laughed, one long, thin eyebrow raised. "Roast beef," she said, letting out a somehow delicate snort of laughter.

Still chuckling, Mauurs looked down at the goblin: "Is it clear now?"

"Think so," the goblin answered with a shrug. "No more bombs in the ground at least and no more gas for fire."

"Good."

Maurus barely resisted the urge to ruffle the small green woman's hair and instead waved for the soldiers to begin moving again. His hands were full anyway.

They marched down into the cratered valley and the rest of the force followed with obvious reluctance. Maurus was determined not to show fear, something that was made much easier the the goblins marching right along with him. He doubted even the most crazed goblins would appear that confident if they weren't pretty sure there was no big danger of suddenly losing limbs.

It turned out he was right to trust in the goblins' confidence. Nothing exploded and nothing attacked them. Nothing was hiding in the buildings and nothing came screaming down over the cliffs. The place was as deserted as it had looked at first glance and they settled down to take a break and get some food before they went underground.

Maurus sat, again at the edge of the throng of soldiers, only just out of throwing range of the southernmost tunnel. Maurus didn't feel hungry, but he forced some cheese and bread down, not even tasting it. Mathias and Arianna had joined him and oddly, so had the redheaded goblin. She told them that she was called Widget and was really excited about this job, both because of the bombs involved, which was most likely very different, being of demon make, and also because of the immense sum they were being paid because it had been such a sudden recruitment.

Maurus only listened with half an ear. His mood had quickly darkened and his attention kept drifting to the tunnel. It seemed to him that the dense darkness that filled the tunnel only a little ways in was waiting hungrily for them to enter. He told himself those thoughts were foolish, but he couldn't shake the unease.

He put the food down and gripped his right arm with his left, pressing down on one of the patches of burnt skin. The pain almost made him gasp and his head spun slightly, but it took his mind of thoughts of collapsing tunnels.

Widget fell silent and looked at him strangely. "You okay, Boss?"

Arianna sighed. "Use the stone or find a healer, cow."

"It's fine," Maurus grumbled. "It keeps me alert."

"Right until you pass out from a demon hitting you in the wound and you fall on one of us." She sounded irritated. "First you refuse that shaman's healing and now you refuse this. Do you take pride in being injured?"

"Get healed," Mathias said. He gestured with his skeletal hand to the holes in his throat and rasped: "Take it from me, having permanent wounds isn't something to aspire to."

Maurus grunted in annoyance, but rose to his feet. It only took him a few minutes to find a healer and return to the trio and as he sat down, he let out pleased sigh. He hadn't even realized how much of the tension that came from the pain of the burns and his body felt loose and light without it.

Arianna looked at him expectantly.

"Better?"

"Better," Maurus confirmed, his lips twitching in response to Arianna's small smirk. However, one glance in the direction of the tunnel erased the smile that had begun to form and tension began to creep back into his body.

Arianna caught him glancing toward the tunnel. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

"By the Well, Cow, brooding won't help."

Maurus snorted and flippantly waved a hand at the tunnel opening.

"Fine, I'll simply stop worrying about the maze of cramped, dark tunnels filled with demons and who knows what else."

"Replace demons with dead things and it sounds like home," Mathias said nonchalantly. "It won't be that bad, you get used to it."

" _I don't_ want  _to get used to it,_ " Maurus thought but he didn't voice the thought. Instead he tried to relax, mostly failed and managed a half-hearted grin as he said: "With any luck, we'll have made that change in the near future."

Mathias grinned with dark mirth and said: "That's the spirit."

They fell into silence after that, each preparing what they could for their foray into the tunnels. None of them knew how expansive the tunnels were, but they all suspected clearing the tunnels would take a while. Almost an hour after they had first marched into the empty valley, Arianna rose and joined a group of shamans and a couple of other casters, apparently warlocks like herself. The warlocks summoned flickering, ghastly green orbs that vaguely resembled eyes and sent them speeding down into the tunnels. The shamans merely sat down and closed their eyes. Maurus couldn't feel or see anything, but he recognized spirit-walking, using the Far Sight as some called it, when he saw it and felt mild worry. He doubted sending your spirit out of your body was safe or healthy here.

Finally, when Maurus again began to feel nervous tension creep into him and his thoughts turned as dark as the tunnel, the casters declared that they had done as much scouting as they could and Maurus almost leapt to his feet, relieved that the waiting was over. The soldiers formed little groups, none of them numbering more than twelve and stood, silent and waiting.

Maurus stood only a few steps from the southern tunnel with Arianna, Mathias and Widget, Guth and his men right behind them. He raised his head and took in the sky above. It was murky and dirty through the smoke of the valley, looking like ash specked with coal dust, but it was still a beautiful, vast dome that spoke to him of freedom and endless plains. He took a deep breath of foul air and wrenched his gaze away, turning to the yawning maw of the tunnel. His heart began hammering in his chest and his hands turned clammy around his mace and shield as he trudged into the tunnel, his shadow stretching ahead of him, the light from Widget's torch making it flicker and twist like a gibbering demon.


	9. Traps and Tricks

Ashenvale Adventures

Traps and Tricks

They moved slowly into the tunnels, working their way into the cold, stinking darkness with great caution, stopping constantly to allow shamans and warlocks in the front groups to scout ahead or down side corridors. For the most part, the place was deserted, but the odd attempted ambush prevented them from getting complacent. Not that Maurus needed reminders. The darkness and stone seeming to press in around him had his heart hammering and his muscles tensed like coiled springs.

It was after another ambush, as they stood over the ashen remains of imps and felhunters that Mathias said: "Yes, this does remind me of home."

Maurus looked at Mathias, then around the room, his mouth twisted in distaste. The small cave was very similar to the others they had passed through and it was every bit as unpleasant as the others.

"The craftsmanship is not exactly on the same level," Mathias continued airily. The torchlight flickered over the walls, catching in the easily recognizable grooves of pickaxes and in the scarred surfaces of the simple wooden chairs and tables at the edge of the room. A few weapon racks also lined the walls, though they were all empty.

"And there is less slime. But in some ways," he added, trailing off. Maurus followed Mathias' gaze as he took in the more disturbing details of the cave. At one wall, rusty steel rings were set into the walls at about an orc's knee height. The floor and wall just under the rings were stained with dark, crusted liquid, just barely distinct against the dark grey stone. Bits of bone and small rotting, unrecognizable lumps dotted the floor around the tables and the air was thick, oddly not with the fumes that filled the valley behind them, but with a putrid smell of decay and waste.

"Your capital sounds more appealing every time I hear about it," Maurus said dryly. He glanced at Arianna, who was standing a bit to his left, Ash curled up at her feet. Her eyes were closed and her expression was blank as she explored the path ahead through the creepy flaming eye she'd summoned. He kept expecting the eyes to somehow lie to her and lead them to their death, but it had already warned them of several ambushes, which were easily defeated with the advance warning.

He still felt uneasy relying on it. Arianna and her magic had seemed nothing but consistent, yet the voice of his old teacher kept sounding in his head: " _Do not put your faith in the things from in between. They are fickle and malicious. Trust in the Earth and the tribe."_

He looked across the room to the other unexplored tunnel and felt mildly jealous at the group vanishing down into the darkness there. Having a shaman like they had would have put him much more at ease.

"It's clear," Arianna said as her eyes opened. Maurus looked down at Widget, who nodded and took point, her small eyes darting everywhere with keen interest, searching for any trace of traps. Her backpack bobbed up and down as she walked, idly toying with her small, gleaming blunderbuss. The rest followed closely behind her.

As soon as Maurus stepped from the relatively spacious room and into the tunnel, he again had to focus to keep his breathing controlled and even. The walls were too close and he kept expecting to brush against the walls or ceiling, even though there was a good feet or two above him and room for Mathias at his side.

He couldn't wait to get out under the open sky again, but progress was slow and time seemed to lose its meaning in the darkness. He doubted he would be able to find his own way out if he had to. The only thing he knew was that they were going more or less south. The tunnels meandered drunkenly through the rock, splitting and crossing apparently at random intervals, and at every intersection, they had to stop and wait for other groups to catch up and investigate the other paths. The magic scouting only added further delays to the process, though he wasn't going to complain about that. It beat advancing blindly and it had saved them some time on several occasions when a path had turned out to double back or connect to a path where other groups had already been.

"I don't understand how you can live in something even a little like this," Maurus said, picking up the previous conversation in an effort to distract himself from the narrow corridor, trying to fill the air with something other than footsteps and the rattle of armor.

"It was easy to hide in and defend. The city above ground was sacked in The Third War, but the sewers and catacombs were just fine."

Maurus shook his head.

"You're as mad as the dwarves and gnomes. We belong in the sun."

' _Well, most of us do,'_ he thought, his eyes wandering to the open wounds and exposed bones marring Mathias body. He pushed the harsh thought away and glanced back at Arianna.

"Your people have the right of it."

"What?" she asked.

"Your people are all about light and fire. All that flame and brightness. And your Sunwell."

Mathias winced, his eyes darting to Arianna and Maurus followed his gaze to see Arianna's eyes seeming to flare up. For a moment, her eyes lingered on Mathias, then she looked briefly at Maurus before averting her gaze.

"The Well is gone," she said. Her tone was completely empty and it made Maurus' insides twist in equal parts pity and embarrassment. He gritted his teeth for a moment and said quietly:

"I'm sorry for my ignorance." Arianna, who's eyes had hardened at the word "sorry", got a slight bit softer and she nodded curtly.

"We don't all live down below," Mathias said, dragging the conversation back to the original subject. "We've reclaimed and rebuilt much of the city by now, though many stay below anyway. It's as if something doesn't want you topside."

Maurus raised an eyebrow and snorted.

"Are you saying many of you stay away from the surface because it feels haunted?"

"Irony," Widget giggled from a few feet in front of them. Guth and his men chuckled briefly, but didn't add anything. They really were a quiet bunch.

Mathias narrowed his eyes, before his mouth twisted into a smirk and he shrugged. "I guess."

Maurus stubbornly held the conversation alive as they walked. Anything to keep his attention from their continued descent into the mountain, even if it was somewhat disturbing to hear Mathias' account of the Tirisfall Glades. It made Maurus silently decide that if he ever went to the Eastern Kingdoms, he would go to the Southlands, as that sweltering jungle hell still seemed infinitely more welcoming than the dead world Mathias described, where it hardly seemed to ever become brighter than twilight.

Some time later they came out into another room, larger than the previous ones, with only a couple of chairs and a table at one side. It seemed a crossroads of sorts, with tunnels on all sides. Mathias immediately turned to the tunnel behind them and began waving his torch back and forth. The spot of light a few hundred feet behind them bobbed up and down in answer and began coming closer. The room would be full of warriors ready to go down the different paths shortly. Meanwhile, Widget had immediately gone to investigate a tunnel just to the left of the one they had entered by. Just as Arianna had told them after her latest scouting, that tunnel and a few others were odd. It was smaller and narrower than the others and looked newer. Only Widget or Ash would have been able to walk upright in there.

"Shoddy work, Boss, even worse than these rooms," she said. Maurus got down on one knee and peered into the low opening, while Guth and Mathias formed a half-circle around them, facing the other tunnels.

"Does it matter? We're not going down that way," Maurus said. He was straining to see anything down the tunnel.

"Most of these tunnels are really old, though a lot of the rooms seem newer. But these ones," she said, pointing at the low tunnel and a similar one further to her left, "they're very recent and have been rushed."

She sniffed, froze, and inhaled deeply through her nose, moving closer to the walls of the low tunnel.

"I have no idea how you can do that without gagging," Maurus said. He was breathing through his mouth as much as he could, trying and failing to ignore the stench of decay.

Something caught his eye. Was that something green he saw down the low tunnel?

"Think there is something ahead," Guth grunted from behind Maurus as Arianna knelt beside Widget.

"Think we're spotted?" Maurus asked the room. He'd hardly finished the sentence when the green glow sped down the tunnel towards them. It revealed itself as a sphere like the ones Arianna summoned, an eye. On reflex, he shoved both Widget and Arianna back, raising his shield but the eye simpler sailed over his head in a graceful arc and sped down one of the corridors ahead.

"We're spotted," Arianna said, half in a sigh.

Maurus glanced over his shoulder and saw Guth and the rest of the warriors step closer and raise their shields, tensely looking down the tunnel the eye had flown down.

"Boss," Widget said, sniffing again, "it's rocket fuel. And black powder."

Maurus felt his stomach turn to water and glanced around him. "What, here?"

"No, no," Widget said easily. She tapped her nose. "Only traces. But there were bombs here, and not that long ago. Days, at most."

The information made a chill roll down Maurus' spine and he became acutely aware of the mountain above his head just as the first explosion rolled down the tunnel. The sound came both from the narrow tunnel they were just in front and from the tunnel they had used themselves. The ceiling collapsed a hundred feet down the tunnel, sending a wave of dust rolling towards them and blocking the approaching light from view. Maurus coughed in the dust cloud, heart sinking when he heard more rumbles, a lot more, echoing down the low tunnel and from the other tunnels leading back the way they had come.

"I wish I was more surprised," Maurus muttered, trying to keep his hands from shaking. They were cut off, trapped. His eyes flicked to the torches held by Mathias and one of Guth's men, Graka. He knew they had a few more, but they wouldn't last forever and who knew how long they would be down here.

"You're learning," Arianna said, cutting through his panic. Her voice was glib, but there was still an edge of tension to the words.

"Sensible use of explosives," Widget said tonelessly. "Doubt we can dig through that in a hurry." She spun around and peered between the legs of Guth and his men, clutching her gun to her chest, ready to raise it and fire.

"Part of the risk," Guth said grimly. He nodded ahead, where green light appeared down one of the tunnels. "Think they're coming to mop up."

Mathias gave Maurus another of his rictus grins. "Boss?"

It sounded half like an insult, half like a challenge. A tremor ran through Maurus. The ways back were probably blocked and they were likely to become horribly lost shortly. He gripped his shield and mace tightly and dug up anger, anger at the underhanded tactics of the demons, at the way the damnable troll seemed to used the army, anything to push back the paralyzing fear he felt. He looked around the group, eyes lingering on Widget for a moment before he hung his mace in his belt.

"Let's not be here when they arrive," Maurus said, rising from the crouch. It didn't matter where they went, the important thing was getting away from the ambush site. He pointed to the tunnel to the right of the one the eye had vanished into.

"That way!" he growled.

The group obeyed without a word, everyone setting off at a jog. Widget made it two steps before Maurus grabbed her. She was heavier than he expected, probably because of whatever filled her backpack, but it was still easy to sling her over his shoulder. She squawked in surprise and kicked out once, her foot smacking against Maurus' armored right arm and she let out a squeaky: "Ow!"

The word came out so surprised and childish that his lips twitched and a small spark of mirth made him feel just slightly more at ease.

"Sorry," he said as they rushed across the room and into the tunnel, Guth and Mathias in front, Maurus at the rear. "Your legs are too short. Watch our back."

"You know-" she began, her tone mildly indignant, but then seemed to change her mind, "alright, fine."

He could hear her grin as she said with mock seriousness: "Forward my steed!"

Arianna looked over her shoulder and smirked.

"First time I've seen someone riding a cow."

"I'm not planning on this becoming a habit," Maurus snorted. "Eyes ahead, you'll slow us down if you trip."

Arianna raised an eyebrow as he came up to run alongside her, wordlessly conveying that she found the notion ridiculous.

"If I have to drag you by the ankle again, I will," Maurus said.

"I'm touched," Arianna said.

The rustle of their armor seemed worryingly loud as they ran and Maurus felt almost guilty for the hard clacks of his hooves against the floor. The light from their torches danced over the tunnel in time with their footsteps, making the walls seem to shift and ripple like they were in the intestine of some great beast. He tried to push the though away, along with the feeling that the dark corridor was narrowing in around them.

A while later, and a few turns and splits in the tunnels further in, Guth and his men slowed. Maurus was about ready to growl for them to continue but he forced it down, trying to ignore his hammering heart and the press of rock around him as he came to a stop behind them. Right in front of them, the tunnel branched again. Maurus would have preferred another room, anything with more space around him, but with no sign of pursuit, it was time to stop the heedless flight.

"I think we lost them," Guth said.

"They didn't seem to follow," Widget agreed as Maurus put her down on the ground. She made a show of stretching and cracked her neck loudly, the sound of it sharp and enough to make some, oddly enough, Mathias included, wince.

"You're not very comfortable," she complained halfheartedly.

Maurus tapped his shoulder plate. "Steel, you know, not a pillow."

Arianna pushed her way through the orcs and ran one hand over the rock separating the two openings ahead, much like, Maurus suddenly realized, she had done to a lot of the openings in the beginning of their descent into the tunnels.

"Put out the torches," she said quietly.

"And how will we see? The demons might not require much light, but I'm no mole," Guth said.

Arianna, her attention still focused on the wall, lifted her staff and shook it slightly and the crystal topping it glowed a little brighter.

"Just do it," she insisted.

Maurus made an effort to shrug nonchalantly, even if the idea of snuffing out their illumination for any length of time filled him with dread. The eerie light of Arianna's staff wasn't something he wanted as sole source of light, but he thought he could guess the point. "You can light them again, can't you?" he said, glancing at Mathias and Graka.

Graka grumbled a little, but both torches were quickly wrapped in strips of flame-resistant cloth, their light dying without even a puff of smoke. The flame in the headpiece of Arianna's staff flared up, bathing the corridor in an eerie green light that made them all look ghoulish and sickly.

"That also reminds me of home," Mathias said. Maurus ignored him, deciding the man was homesick. And disturbed, if friendly.  _'But to be fair, I think I'd be messed up too if I had died and come back,"_  Maurus thought.

"And how is this better?" Graka asked, packing the torch into his backpack.

"This looks like their flame. They might think we are just one of their groups," Arianna said absently. "And-" She trailed off for a moment then said with some satisfaction: "These haven't been removed."

Maurus could see deep grooves beside her palm, stark dark lines in the sickly light.

"Do those show the way?" Maurus asked. His tone was neutral. He dared not really give voice to the spark of hope he felt.

"I think we can use it," Arianna said. With a gesture and a few rolling, harsh-sounding words, another magical eye sprung into existence in front of her. "I'll look ahead."

Guth squinted thoughtfully at the ethereal eye as it sped down one tunnel. He looked around at his men while they waited. One of them stepped closer to Guth and muttered something too low for Maurus to hear.

"This way," Arianna said when she opened her eyes, beginning to walk down the left tunnel.

Maurus and Mathias moved to follow, but stopped when they realized the rest of the group hadn't followed. Widget had moved closer to the center of the orc group, mildly worrying, considering she had slung her blunderbuss over one shoulder and now instead fiddled with two red tubes, topped with wicks. No, not wicks, Maurus realized, fuses. He found himself wondering how many of those explosives were stuffed in Widget's rather large backpack.

Arianna stopped and turned around to look at the motionless group.

"We have to keep moving. At least now they might mistake the light for either their own light or an eye," she said. Her voice was even, but there was a trace of impatience in it.

"We're just going to follow these symbols that only you know? How do you know them anyway, warlock?" Graka glared at Arianna. Guth and several of his men looked like they thought he had a point.

Arianna's eyes narrowed and she said coldly: "You answered your own question."

"We could find someone to ask for directions instead," Mathias said as he ran a finger along the edge of a sword.

"I don't care," Maurus said, his anxiety making it come out in a testy growl, "keep moving, we can figure it out as we go along."

"Demons are impossible to coerce unless you have a contract. They fear their leaders more than anything," Guth said, as if Maurus hadn't interrupted. He gritted his teeth in irritation.

"Well, not impossible, our Lady managed it," Mathias said smugly.

An expression, maybe of doubt, flickered over Guth's face, but he shrugged and said: "Still, we can't do anything to them here that would make them show us the way."

It seemed they weren't moving before they had reached a decision, so Maurus bit back an irritated order to keep moving and instead thought back to the garrison by the river. Something stood out.

"How about what the old warlock did?"

Arianna shook her head once. "That was magical puppetry, not real control."

"There's a difference?" Widget asked, eyes still on the explosives in her hands.

"Can a puppet tell you anything the controller doesn't know?" Arianna said. Widget made a thoughtful noise.

"What about the hound?" one of Guth's other men asked testily, pointing at Ash, loping alongside Arianna in silence. It seemed the agitation of the former torchbearer was spreading.

"Do you think that hasn't occurred to me?" Arianna asked, her tone just above a hiss. "He's on guard for other demons, but-"

"Then how about we use charm instead of force," another of Guth's orcs interrupted, showing all his teeth in a wide grin. There was a distinct lewd tone in his voice when he added: "Ditch the dog and summon up a she-devil that can convince someone to show us the way out."

There was a slight chuckle in the group and a little of the tension lifted, but that wasn't what caught Maurus' attention. He'd expected, especially considering the annoyance she was showing, that Arianna would retort sharply, so he was taken aback when she didn't react. To his surprise, her eyes had widened slightly and, unless the weird lighting was playing tricks on his eyes, there was a slight bit of color in her cheeks.

"I am not-" she began, interrupting herself with a more firm: "That just isn't practical."

"C'mon, the 'locks hardly need anything for their demons," another one of the orcs said. Counting that one, fully half of Guth's men seemed determined to argue with Arianna. She glared daggers at the speaker and at the orc that had made the suggestion to summon a succubus in the first place.

"Do you honestly think I'm not already doing everything in my power to get us out of here as fast as possible?"

Maurus noted with worry that the orcs seemed to giving the rhetorical question actual thought. ' _Giving them more time to think might not be the best idea,'_ he thought. His hands were getting clammy despite the cool air in the tunnel and his heart beat even harder in his chest.

"You heard her, this is our best chance. Widget, keep your eyes open for traps, no reason to get careless." He gave Guth's men hard looks then tried to soften the reprimand with a slight nod. "Just keep your eyes open, watch our backs and stay on your toes."

He could feel the tension in the air. No-one had said it out loud, but the group was on the verge of breaking apart. Cut off from the rest of the army and lost in the darkness, distrust and agitation easily boiled to the surface and he could see in the way some of the orcs held their weapons that they were considering just slitting Arianna's throat and hoping for the best on their own. Maybe they'd take out Mathias for good measure and Maurus because he knew the elf. It was an unpleasant realization that he could see some twisted logic in the idea.

He found Guth's eyes and gave him an imploring look.

"Let's go," Guth said simply and Maurus breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the group began moving again, him, Arianna and Widget at the front, Mathias right behind him and Guth's group taking up the rear. He hoped the orcs would take it as a sign of trust and not an invitation that he turned his back on them.

Their pace was even slower than before. Arianna had more ground to cover when the tunnel branched or a tunnel crossed their path and she even sent the eye back the way they had come a couple of times, to see if anyone was following them out of sight.

As they walked, Maurus desperately wanted to spark up a conversation, anything to take their minds off what dangers may lurk in the darkness, but he kept quiet. A moment's inattention or a word that carried too far could bring death down upon them. So they walked through the darkness in silence, eyes straining to make out any hint of enemies, ears perked for any noise. Now and then, someone thought they glimpsed or heard something, but it was always so quick or faint that they couldn't be sure it wasn't just their mind playing tricks on them as the constant alertness without relief slowly frayed their nerves.

Maurus already felt as on edge as Widget looked when he noticed Arianna seemed to be losing confidence. Her grip on her staff was white-knuckled and her eyes kept darting to the crystal on top. Several times she turned her head sharply or seemed to be listening intently. When she grimaced at the end of another magic scouting, Maurus tapped her shoulder and asked, more harshly than he intended: "What's wrong?"

They had stopped at another intersection and Arianna had checked all three paths.

"Aside from the obvious?" she said flatly. She sighed and hesitated, in that moment looking exhausted. "We've been noticed."

"Great," Maurus said harshly, as a mutter went through the group. "Where?"

"All around us. But we are nearing an exit," she said firmly, "trust me." Someone snorted behind them, but Maurus paid them little heed. Now that she'd mentioned it, Maurus thought he could just make out heavy footsteps somewhere behind them. He half-wanted to just turn around and fight.

"How many?"

"Dozens on each side."

Maurus' heart sank but at the same time he felt something like relief.

"This is it, then," Maurus said, meeting the gaze of the others one by one and seeing nothing but grim determination. He exchanged his shield and mace for his two-handed axe and looked down on Widget, his eyes going to the red tubes in her hand as he waved for the group to get moving.

"You got any more of those?" he said morosely.

Her teeth appeared in a feral grin that went from one pointy ear to the other and her eyes shined almost feverishly in the green light as she took off her backpack and pointed Graka and Mathias.

"Get out your torch."

* * *

Maurus waved them all forward, his spirit lifted just slightly by the warm golden light of the torches they had again lit. A few hundred steps further ahead the walls drew back as they entered a larger cavern. The stench was worse in there, thick to the point it was a taste more than a smell. Their torches and Arianna's staff together still only managed to illuminate some of the room, but the sight sent a shiver through the group. The walls were covered with more metal rings, not the few they had seen in the other rooms, but dozens. The floor was black and sticky, only the rock closest to the walls free of the dried liquid, and patches of lighter hues revealed that not all the blood and waste was old.

There was a quiet clink, and Maurus looked down. Widget had stepped on another metal ring, embedded into the floor, one of many more. Between them he could just barely make out grooves as deep as his thumb was wide. Unlike the roughly hewn walls, this floor had been carefully crafted, with swirls and sigils carved meticulously into the rock. The overwhelming stench, the sight and made his stomach roil with nausea, but something beyond the physical twisted his insides even worse and made his skin crawl like he was covered with writhing maggots. He'd thought he'd experienced the worst of what the demons could do to their surroundings, that the crumbling Canyon and the wasting Hills were the limits of their corruption, but this place felt violated on a level beyond the physical, like everything natural had been ripped from it, leaving behind only rot and death.

' _This is what the demons do,'_ he thought, and he couldn't help glancing at Arianna and Ash. The red skin of the felhunter and the green in her eyes had never seemed so sinister.

"Where have you led us, warlock?" Guth growled, hesitating.

"Almost out, keep moving," Arianna answered. She turned her head, as if listening.

Their steps made faint, disgusting squelches as they picked their way across the room. Now the sounds from behind them were impossible to mistake for anything but running, heavy footsteps and the oddly light sound of many hooves that closed very quickly.

Maurus almost ran into Widget and Arianna when they abruptly stopped in front of him. Guth cursed behind him and he heard the now familiar sound of the orcs closing ranks. Maurus tightened his grip on his axe and the deadly weight in his left hand and tried to keep his hands from trembling.

In front of them, just barely touched by the light Arianna's staff shed, stood a dozen of the blue giants, the floor around them a mass of red and black felhunters, blocking the tunnel ahead. The demons stood almost as still as statues, their eyes aglow with yellow and green flame, exuding the quiet menace of a hunter that knows his prey is trapped. Their silence was such a stark contrast to what Maurus had come to associate with the demons that it made a chill run down his spine.

He half-turned as Mathias stepped up to his side and saw demons spill into the light on the other side of the room, more blue giants and red felhunters.

"Get us a moment," Widget whispered to Arianna before she drew back, into the middle of the circle made by Maurus, Mathias and Guth's group, fiddling with her bombs. Maurus frowned at Arianna as she took a step closer to the demons, standing up straighter, all exhaustion vanishing from her posture.

From one of the pouches at her waist, Arianna drew out a piece of carved rock and held it up in front of her while her staff blazed with even brighter light. She spoke a sure, rapid stream of the guttural language Maurus had learned to recognize as a demonic tongue, her words masking hiding the slight hiss of fuses being lit behind him. Maurus noted distractedly that he recognized her name in the words. He also thought one of the words sounded like something he'd heard at back at the garrison by the river, but before he could think further on it, Guth snarled, voice filled with loathing: "Sacrifice? Traitorous whore!"

At the outburst, mocking laughter rolled from the demons but it stopped abruptly when three sticks of dynamite, trailing sparks, sailed over Maurus' head, deep into the back of the demons. Taking that as his cue, Maurus sent Widget's backpack flying in an underhand throw right into the front of the demons and just as the demons began to press forward, Arianna's words became imbued with power. The pack caught fire and then explosions rocked the cavern. Most of the demons were ripped apart in a shower of gore, bone and chunks of flesh. He flinched, feeling like a giant fist closed around him as shockwaves from behind and in front slammed into him and his ears popped painfully. Somehow it cleared his head and, ears ringing, he charged, raising his axe above his head and roaring a battle cry.

The rest of the group followed him as he leapt into the stunned remaining demons, still covered in the remains of their brethren. Most of the felhunters had been reduced to ragged carcasses and only a few blue giants remained. Maurus' axe came down in a diagonal stroke on one giant that was just stumbling to its feet and bit deep into its chest, smashing through collarbone and ribs. He ripped the axe free and hastened on.

He kicked a felhunter aside and saw out the corner of his eye that Mathias smacked it over the head with his torch, before opening its side with his sword. A giant stepped forward and raised his sword to cut Maurus down, but the demon turned transparent and ethereal half-way through the motion and Maurus leapt through the ghostly figure, to the surprise of the demon behind him, who went down when he buried his axe in its chest. It dropped to the ground with a gurgle he could barely hear over the ringing in his ears.

To his right, Ash and one of Guth's orcs took down two felhunters. A third giant crumbled to the floor ahead of him, his body looking like it was burning and rotting at the same time and Mathias killed two more felhunters to his left.

The demons were completely off balance, still reeling from the explosion and the sudden loss of most of their warriors and they didn't get the chance to recover. Maurus hacked left and right, unleashing the tension of the terrifying hours in the darkness, joined on one side by Mathias and on the other by Ash, while Arianna blasted the demons with her magic, her incantations loud and frenzied.

After what only felt like a few instants, the room fell silent again. Maurus stood, his axe buried in the gory ruin of a felhunter, breathing heavily, feeling drained but exhilarated. He felt unhurt except for some bruising and as he thought about injuries, he whirled around to look at the others. Seeing all the others in the group still standing, their defeated enemies' blood spattered over the floor, he felt his chest swell with what was almost euphoria.

Mathias grinned one of his cruel grins and began saying something, but Maurus only heard a low murmur. He stopped and raised his voice: "It's about time some of their blood was spilt here."

Maurus nodded and said: "Let us hope this soothes the spirits of those that died here."

The thought dampened the buzzing excitement in his chest and he turned to the tunnel. A flash of moving red had him raising his axe, and it was only at the last second that he stopped himself from bringing it down on Ash's back. He shook his head and sent an apologetic look at Arianna. She waved it off with her staff, holding her free hand to her ear.

"Let's go, the entire mountain probably heard that," Maurus shouted.

He turned to Widget, who was glancing between the blackened spot where her backpack had blown up to the mutilated bodies in the room, her expression switching between regret, glee and nausea. He put his axe head down on the ground, let go and grabbed Widget, lifting her up to sit on his shoulder again, eliciting another surprised squawk, and then gripped his axe again before it could fall over. She didn't kick him this time and just grabbed onto whatever she could to keep her balance as they began moving. That happened to be his mane, but he hardly even felt it over the hazy joy of surviving the battle.

"It should be straight ahead from now," Arianna said as the ran into the tunnel. Maurus nodded. Finally some good news.

She smirked and added: "I thought you didn't plan on this becoming a habit." The smirk was a little strained though and she was still covering one ear with her hand.

Maurus made a show of putting one hand to his ear and saying: "What?"

"I thought-" she began, speaking louder, before glaring at him.

He chuckled in response before answering: "It's a celebratory ride, she did save us there."

"Yep," Widget cried happily. "There weren't even any premature detonations and only two duds. Best batch I ever made!"

Maurus drew a shaky breath as he realized how dangerous the pack Widget had carried had been. Even worse, he realized, only one of those needed to have been bad to set off all the others. They could have been set off before they even entered the tunnels, detonating by themselves or, more likely, when the trap had set all that gas aflame.

"You're crazy," Maurus said, half-stunned. The ringing in his ears had faded enough that he could speak normally and still expect to be able to hear the responses.

"No," Widget replied, "I'm a goblin sapper."

"Goblin," Mathias said at almost the same time in a tone like that explained everything. Maurus decided it almost did.

The tunnel was beginning to slope just slightly upwards and Maurus allowed himself to hope.

"I don't think I had to run so much I met you," Maurus grumbled half-heartedly to Arianna as the horrid room vanished behind them. "And there definitely weren't so many explosions."

"It's probably good for you," Mathias cut in. He wasn't even breathing hard. If at all. Maurus huffed in response. He found it mildly unfair what advantages it gave being an affront to nature. How explosions could be good for him, he had no idea.

"I cannot take credit for any of those fireworks," Arianna said, her tone smooth and with hint of mock haughtiness.

"You helped with the last one," Widget countered brightly, before adding a little sadly: "My poor backpack."

"And I suffer for it again," Arianna muttered, "my poor ears."

Another tunnel merged into the one they were in. Widget turned on Maurus shoulder, looking behind them.

"I think there is someone down that tunnel," she said nervously, "and I'm all out of boom."

Ahead, Maurus saw light, unmistakable, pale light. His breath hitched and his eyes watered. They were so close, he needed to get out. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

"Run," he growled. He could not hear their pursuers, but it seemed likely that other demons had been alerted by the explosions.

The tunnel made a half-turn and as they passed the corner, the opening came into view. Almost bright against the dark rock, the indigo night sky at that moment was the most beautiful thing Maurus had ever seen. Nothing blocked their path, all their enemies seemed to be behind them.

They stumbled out onto a mountainside, onto a wide stretch of land that would block the view of the tunnel mouth from the valley below. Above them, the sky stretched in all direction, a vast dark void that felt like you could just fall up into it, only broken by the twin silver moons. The chilly mountain air was fresh and smelled faintly of grass and dew and dust. On their right, the mountains blocked their view, while the mountain range dwindled and drew back slowly to their left, to the east, and further out in that direction, Maurus thought he could see the Durotan river, a thin band darker than the area around it. Before them, the Barrens stretched out in an endless sea of earth and rippling grass. Most of what he could see was almost flat and ghostly grey, but at the foot of the mountain was a large stretch of land darker than the rest, lit here and there by flickers of flame that vanished as quickly as they sprang up.

' _An army camp,'_  Maurus thought,  _'a large one_.'

The slope down the mountain had been stamped into very distinct trails that winded between the giant boulders. He turned around, taking in the area just around tunnel and saw that there was a distinct ridge above the tunnel opening. That seemed their best chance. He wouldn't be surprised if there were demons lying in wait somewhere down the slope and even if they could descend unnoticed, the demon's camping out on the plains just might spot them and run them down. Better to try the ascent.

"Follow me," he said urgently, going northeast up the mountainside, "this way."

The others followed in silence.

Maurus felt almost at peace. The open sky and dry earth spoke to him and the plains of the Barrens were almost as much a home as Mulgore. He belonged there and he could survive there. He smiled a confident smile as they climbed higher into up the mountain.


	10. Climb and Drop

Ashenvale Adventures

Climb and Drop

They climbed into the mountains as fast as they could. Fearing they'd be too easy to spot with the light, they'd put out their torches again and Arianna's staff was only smoldering with the dimmest green ember. For the first few nerve-wracking minutes, they fumbled and stumbled their way up the steep slope until their eyes adjusted. When the passed over the ridge, the slope became less steep and they picked up the pace.

For two hours they walked in silence, ears perked for any noise that might signal pursuit. Though Maurus remained alert, he was focused more on finding their way and making sure he could find the way back later, so he counted on the others for detecting their pursuers. He was especially counting on Arianna and Ash. As far as he was concerned, they were their best bet of early warning of their enemies. The spirits had blessed them with winds blowing from the valley and up the mountains, bringing any scent towards them and he expected Ash would warn them should the demons come near and if that failed, he expected Arianna's keen ears to make up for it.

' _Then again,'_ he thought, seeing her once more lift her free hand to her ear,  _'they might not be that keen at the moment.'_  She was on his right, trudging along with almost nothing of her usual grace, her shoulders hunched, actually leaning on her staff. His own ears still throbbed dully, but he'd realized that next to Mathias and maybe Widget, he probably had the worst hearing in the group, and if even his ears hurt like that still, Arianna's must hurt that much more.

Except for Ash, who seemed as vigorous as ever, the others were also showing signs of fatigue. Even Mathias and Widget and Maurus felt like he'd been carrying the latter half the day. It wasn't true but the petty thought still appeared every time he looked down at her mop of red hair. Now that they were not fighting or running for their lives, his own limbs were growing heavy and the chill from the air was seeping into his muscles, making each step harder than the last.

It was music to his ears when he heard water trickling down the mountain. Out of the darkness, a small stream appeared, just wide enough that Maurus couldn't quite step over it, running across their path from east to west. The sight made Maurus realize how parched his throat was and as one, the group fell to their knees at the edge of the stream. Arianna and Widget cupped their hands to scoop up the water. Maurus simply ducked his head to the water and drank deeply, relishing it as the water ran down his throat, thankful that they were on the border to Ashenvale and not in the Blade's Edge Mountains. There he wouldn't have trusted the water. He felt like a sheen of grime and grease that he hadn't even been consciously aware off was washed from his muzzle and mouth. He raised his head, feeling much cleaner than he had the last few days and caught Arianna giving him a mildly reproachful look. He grinned, dipped his head wholly in the stream before rising again, shaking his head like a wet wolf shakes itself.

"Was that necessary?" Arianna asked, looking decidedly unamused, splattered with droplets.

"We could all use a bath," Maurus said, smiling, as he filled his empty waterskin. Water trickled down his face, catching in the wrinkles and scars, especially the wide one running from one nostril to the other. "But we'll have to settle for dipping our feet."

He walked out into the middle of the water and pointed upwards. "We're following the stream. That should confuse pursuit a bit."

The others nodded and followed. It was a detour, from what Maurus could tell from the landmarks, but it was better than never coming back to the army at all. They had important things to tell Zolan. Again. He sighed. It seemed like a fortnight, not just a day, had passed since he'd eaten his breakfast in the Felfire Hills.

They waded up the stream, the low splashes of their steps seeming loud in the quiet night. Maurus told himself it wasn't a problem, but some fearful part of him kept expecting the noise to attract attention. After all, demons weren't the only dangerous creatures in the mountains.

But his fears proved unfounded and some time later he led them out of the stream and back on course. By then, the brief feeling of rejuvenation they'd felt when they stumbled on the stream had long since vanished. The march to Demonfall Canyon had been swift and tiring but it was the journey through the mountain that had truly pushed them. With a few hours till dawn, exhaustion was setting in. Widget stumbled over a rock and Mathias' hand darted out, catching her before she could fall. Maurus only barely avoided putting his foot down on the same rock at an angle, a move that could easily have had him limping the rest of the way.

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and glanced around at the others. They slouched, holding their weapons limply. Even Mathias looked tired. His hunched posture was even more pronounced and his movements had a stiff look to them.

Luckily, it only took a few minutes before Maurus spotted a good place to stop for the night. In the shadow of a huge boulder was a wide semicircle of rocks, most of which were half the size of Maurus. Good cover, as long as they didn't light a fire and none of them were that stupid.

"We're stopping here for now," he said. Maurus could see the relief in the posture of the group as they moved past the rocks. Most of them dropped down heavily on the dusty ground, though three of the orcs immediately went over to the boulder and leaned against it, closing their eyes. Almost instantly their bodies and breathing relaxed as they fell asleep. Maurus realized they had chosen the best place to sleep, furthest from the more open part of the half-circle and with the rock at their back, as shielded as they could get.

He felt a twinge of annoyance and frowned slightly. They still needed to decide who was on guard, but he pushed the irritation down. If they crashed like that, they probably wouldn't have made very alert sentries.

A string of demonic words almost had Maurus raising his weapon, but he recognized Arianna's voice a moment later. Ash stood before her, alert and still for once as she gave him orders. At least, that was what Maurus guessed she was doing.

"I'll take first watch," Mathias said.

Guth and the still awake members of his group exchanged a few quick words, too low for Maurus to hear and then Graka volunteered as well.

"I'm glad we already used my dynamite, that stream would have ruined them," Widget said. Though she'd walked at the edge of the stream, the water had still almost reached to her knees while in the middle, while where Maurus walked, it had reached half-way past Maurus' shins.

"We might rust though," Guth muttered sleepily. He and the two other orcs not up for guard duty went to lie down next to their sleeping comrades.

"Or grow mold," Mathias said. Maurus couldn't quite decide whether he meant it or not.

"I don't think either of those will become real problems. What could be a problem though. Guth could you and your men find your way back to where we came out of the tunnels?"

Guth snorted as he tried, and apparently failed to get comfortable. "You can't hunt demons if you get lost all the time."

Maurus nodded. That was good. He had faith he could find the way but it took a weight off his shoulders to know it wasn't solely up to him to find their way or, if it came to that, lead others back the other way.

"Good to know that some of us can find our own way," he said, smirking and glancing towards Arianna, only to see that she had lain down halfway between him and the orcs, and closed her eyes. Her breathing was even, but her posture was tense and she was clutching her staff tightly to her. A small tremble went through her as he watched.

Widget yawned hugely as she lay down next to Arianna, and Maurus felt a yawn of his own come by.

"Get some sleep, we've got this," Mathias said quietly. "And if not, then the nether-spawn will pick up the slack."

Maurus nodded. Sleep was descending on him like a heavy blanket and he could barely keep his eyes open any longer. He crawled a little further towards the center of the rock formation and then let himself collapse. Moments later, with the scent of dry earth in his nose, he fell asleep.

* * *

 

The feel of a cold rough hand shaking his shoulder was supremely unwanted, but he rolled over and reluctantly opened his eyes. The sight that greeted him almost made up for getting dragged from sleep after what felt like minutes. The clear sky was aflame with the first rays of the sun and the Barrens below burned gold in the first hour of the day. Maurus took a deep breath, feeling warmer and more relaxed than he had in days, despite the air still being slightly chilly and his muscles aching dully.

"You snore," Mathias said. "Like a goblin shredder." He'd gone back to stand by the rocks a few feet away, looking into the sunrise. Maurus looked around him, taking in their sleeping companions, and chuckled. His throat felt raw, like he'd swallowed a mouthful of gravel. "They don't seem to mind."

"No idea how they slept through that," Mathias said amiably. Beside him Graka sat, hunched over, looking like he was on the verge of falling over. Ash was pacing in a circle around Arianna and Widget, his steps slightly unsteady, to Maurus' surprise.

"Get some sleep," Maurus said to Graka, "I'll take over."

He regarded him with eyes almost glazed with sleep before he simply leaned back till he was lying flat on the ground and closed his eyes. Maurus turned his attention back to Mathias.

"Do you need rest?" He had no idea if any undead actually needed to sleep. Or what other needs they might have.

"A little nap would not go amiss." Mathias did not sound drowsy, but there was a distinct stiffness to both his posture and his movements. He walked over to the orcs and lay down, and a moment later, he looked like a corpse.

With a groan, Maurus got to his hooves and stepped over to Arianna and Widget. Widget had rolled closer to Arianna and was now sprawled out bonelessly, almost against Arianna's back, her breathing an uneven whistle. Maurus was somewhat amazed at just how relaxed she looked, but then again, he'd seen her attitude to explosives.

Arianna was a different story. She had curled in on herself during the night, clutching her staff to her like her life depended on it. Trembles ran through her twice in the few moments it took for Maurus to walk over to her from where Mathias. Maurus bent down and shook her arm, her muscles hard as stone beneath his fingers. She flinched and her eyes snapped open.

"Are you alright?" Maurus asked. "You look terrible."

It was no exaggeration. She did not just look tired, she looked ill. Her eyes were sunken, and the green glow in them seemed duller.

"Thank you," she croaked irritably. Maurus held out a hand and when she accepted it, he pulled her to her feet with hardly any effort, noting that her hand was just the slightest bit clammy.

"Are you sick?" Maurus asked, putting his palm to her forehead, fingers curling around her hair and the back of her head. Her forehead was slightly clammy, but she didn't feel feverishly warm. She smacked his hand to absolutely no effect. Despite the worry he felt, one side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile at the sight, her head almost vanished beneath his huge hand.

"No, just drained" she said. She glared at him and jerked her head, to no more success, but he let go before she could try again or bring her magic into play. It wasn't actually his intention to make her angry. He half-turned from her, looking down the slope for signs of pursuit but found none.

Free of his grip, Arianna glanced around at their sleeping companions. "I take it we're not moving on immediately."

Maurus shook his head. "The others needed rest too, so I took over. You didn't look like you were having a very nice sleep, so you might as well be the second guard. Plus, I could use those huge ears of yours."

She sniffed contemptuously as he dug in a pouch at his waist and drew out some hard lumps of cheese and bread. Everyone but Widget and Graka had left their larger backpacks behind in the canyon, and brought smaller pouches with provisions.

"Sometimes I'm not sure which is which," Maurus said, holding up cheese in one hand and bread in the other. "Get some food in you, that might help," he added, before biting into the bread.

"Not really," she answered, riffling through her own pouches slowly. Her eyes kept darting to Ash, who had sat down at her side, before she seemed to force her gaze back to her packs. The expression in her eyes when she looked at the felhunter could only be described as hungry. Maurus dug into a pocket and drew out the health stone she'd given him the night before and held it out to her.

"Will this help?" he asked through a mouthful of cheese.

"Yes." She snatched the stone from his hand with a speed that surprised him. Instead of crushing it, she simply held it as it melted into green mist that seeped into her hands. The way she said that simple word, low and breathy, reminded him of the succubi back at the gate into the Felfire Hills. He turned to look back the slope, giving his head a little shake, putting the thought aside.

"Better?"

She walked up beside him.

"Slightly," she answered, but she sounded more than 'slightly' relaxed. When he glanced out the corner of his eye at her, she looked far better too. Her eyes were brighter and less sunken and her posture was less stiff.

They silently watched the sun rise higher into the sky as the hours passed. Far below them, the demon camp was waking, and the cacophony was just barely audible, carried by the morning breeze. There seemed to be no life between them and the camp but it seemed too good to be true. Widget had clearly seen something pursuing them. It wasn't exactly an original idea to try to lose a pursuer by wading through water. They might have gone downstream and that would have put them a few hours back, depending on how good they were at tracking prey, and how stubborn. _'But,_ he thought, glancing down at Ash, who sat beside Widget, scratching himself with one odd hoof,  _'if felhunters can really track by magic, then they should be right on our tail.'_

"Do you think they're still after us?" Maurus asked. Arianna considered the question.

"I would expect them to keep up the chase. But Ash should have picked up their scent." She patted Ash' left horn and he leaned into the touch. "However, the wind is not in our favor anymore."

Once more Maurus wished that they had a shaman in the group. Communing with the elements would be a huge help in finding something so abhorrent to nature as the demons. But it was no use wishing for something they didn't have.

"Think we have stayed as long as we can afford," Maurus said, turning to the sleeping bodies. "Time to move on."

He woke the others and they set off, bleary-eyed and grumbling, but much more alert and surefooted than when they made camp. Maurus felt confident they could spot their pursuers in the daylight, whether they were in the sky or on the ground.

The mountain got steeper as they climbed, slowing their pace. They would have moved even slower if Maurus and Guth hadn't decided almost immediately that speed was more important than trying to confuse their pursuers. Either their pursuers had already lost the track, and then the pursuers would never find them, or the felhunters most likely with them would pick up their scent anyway. Maurus was just relieved that no-one suggested confounding the felhunters' tracking by getting rid of the one in their group who had the most magic. They hardly needed more division in the group.

Despite the urgency and stress of their journey, Maurus found himself enjoying the climb. It reminded him vaguely of the mountains in Northen Mulgore, though with less vegetation, much less. The mountainside was mostly rock and dirt, though the monotony was broken by tenacious tufts of bleached gold grass that grew here and there, breaking up the brown and grey. The occasional huge feather and abandoned nest only further reminded him of those mountains, revealing that there were harpies here too.

Below them, the demon army was moving east It was easy to see them from up here, particularly when he knew they were there, but someone in the Barrens would be hard pressed to spot them from among the rocky terrain where the mountains and the plains met.

"Looks like they're headed for Durotar," Guth said grimly.

"So much for the tactical skills of their commander then," one of the other orcs put in, "that army isn't large enough to dent Orgrimmar."

"The farms and burrows around the Durotan Rivers are another story," Maurus said morosely. "They might reach them before the army is ready. We have to hurry."

Around midday, Maurus' hope that they had escaped their pursuers was shattered. They were walking on a path with a steep drop to one side and almost as steep a slope on the other when he saw the group hurrying up after them over a very exposed bit of the mountain. Seven blue giants, a pack of felhunters, maybe ten, stood out so starkly against the mountainside that Maurus wondered how they could have evaded notice so long. Less noticeable were the imps, blending into the landscape with their yellowish-brown skin, but the flickers of flame gave them away. It seemed they truly couldn't keep themselves from playing with fire for any length of time.

That gave him an idea and he grinned, looking up at the cliff face they had passed a few minutes ago. There was a reason they had slowed to a very slow walk along that cliff and why they still moved carefully and quietly. Some fifty feet up, large holes dotted the surface and both the straw and bright feathers sticking out of the openings, and the stains on the rocks around the holes, betrayed the harpy nests.

"Arianna," Maurus murmured. Arianna, walking at his left, tilted her head, indicating she was listening.

"Can you do without Ash for a while?"

"Yes," she said, the questioning tone prompting him to elaborate.

"Make him wait for the demons, down by that cliff, and make a huge racket when they get there."

There was a chuckle from behind them.

"Good idea. Let them tangle with the birds," Guth said. They all stopped as Arianna gave Ash the commands. The felhunter loped back the way they had come, clinging low to the ground to avoid being seen. Maurus watched him until he was out of sight.

"Finally they are of use," Arianna muttered as the group began moving again, following the path as it turned into a ravine running due north, before it opened up onto a slope littered with boulders as wide around as Maurus was tall.

"This looks like a good place to take out the stragglers," Guth said as they exited the ravine. Maurus looked at him as he continued: "It's probably the best place. And we need to get rid of them, I'm quite sure the climb down will be much steeper. Can't have them dropping rocks and fireballs on our heads while we have our hands full."

Maurus nodded in agreement and they spread out to hide behind the closest boulders, just out of sight and waited. He looked up into the clear sky, searching for any sign of winged creatures descending upon them. Succubi or harpy, if either spotted them and attacked, the ambush would be ruined. Luckily, the only things he saw were too small and the wrong shape to be either.

An odd barking drew his attention back to the ravine. The outraged squawking shrieks that followed made him grin and the bellows and high-pitched shouts made that grin widen further. Mathias, standing beside him, gave him a matching corpse-grin as the chaotic racket intensified.

' _Well, it was a quite narrow ledge,'_ Maurus thought as a drawn-out, frightened roar and a frantic shriek stood out from the rest by cutting through the noise then fading away very swiftly, then abruptly stopping.

Maurus gripped his axe tighter as the clamor came closer, taking heart in the fact that it sounded like the harpies were making an impact. Then the squawking stopped almost from one moment to the next, only a few cries following, like parting shots. Without the cacophony of shrieks and shouts, he could easily hear the sound of feet and hooves rushing up the ravine.

He met Guth's eyes across the open ground between the two boulders they hid behind. The demons sounded like they had thrown caution to the wind and were just running headlong towards them.

A bolt of shadow passing into Maurus' vision was the first part of the ambush, followed by a loud crack as Widget fired her gun. Two felhunters hurried past, dripping blood, both black and red, followed by a few imps that to his surprise seemed more angry than eager. Maurus hefted his axe just as a blue giant came into view. His face and chest was crisscrossed with bloody lines and his skin was turning waxen and sickly-looking from where the shadowbolt had hit him.

Maurus' axe took him in the knee and he fell to the ground, howling in pain. Mathias sprang forward in unison with the rest of the group as they fell upon the disorganized demons. Maurus roared as his axe rose and fell, taking off the downed demon's head before he began stomping and swinging his weapon at the imps and felhunters. The orcs further up the slope intercepted the felhunters and imps running for Arianna, while Guth and his remaining men overwhelmed another blue giant.

Maurus smelled scorched flesh and something sickly around him as he fought, and noticed several of the demons dropping before he even got to them, their hides blackening and turning disgustingly discolored, like they were not only burned from the outside, but also eaten up from the inside by something foul. It looked far more disturbing in the sunlight.

He spat in disgust as his axe cleaved into the head of an imp and splattered brain matter and blood everywhere, but pushed thought away. Any dead enemy was success, at least as long as it was in as open battle as this.

Light flared into his face and he stepped back with a cry of pain, axe up in a futile attempt to ward of the flame, his vision filled with bright spots. He swung his weapon out to the side, preparing to lash out and cleave anyone in front of him before they could set him on fire, but stopped at the gurgles he heard and the frantic: "Stop."

He obeyed, more because of the shock of hearing Mathias so frantic than from the word itself. His vision cleared a moment later, just as the sounds of battle died away. Mathias stood in front of him, his sword still buried in one of the imps at his feet. The other imp was a blackened ruin of necrotic flesh.

Maurus nodded his thanks to Mathias, resting his axe on his shoulder a little sheepishly, before looking around him. All the demons lay dead and everyone else was still standing. They'd survived again and with this, they'd probably escaped pursuit. His chest swelled with joy at the thought.

He thrust his axe above his head and barked out a wordless cry of victory and the orcs roared in answer. Even Widget cried out with them, somewhat undermining the impression, though Mathias' grim salute made up for that. Arianna just looked impatient.

"We're moving on," Maurus barked and they continued their climb. The group's mood was better than it had been since they entered the caves and they made quick progress, only slowing to work their way around more harpy nests. 

A couple of hours later, they crested the top of the mountain. Where the side of the mountain facing the Barrens seemed warm and smoothed by the winds, this side was far harsher. The slope leading down was far steeper, more ashen in color and the boulders and ridges were sharper and rougher. Beyond the mountainside, the view was softer where Ashenvale spread out before them. In the distance, it was an ocean of dark green and deep purple that rippled and flowed in the wind, but closest to them a wound cut into the verdant sea, a wide triangular area that looked like it was dying, bordered by shining silver bands. To the east was more open land, empty of trees, but green and alive, dotted with red-roofed buildings and mounds of huge logs, stretching to the next river. And just visible past the ridges jutting from the steep slope below them, were the outer edges of Demonfall Canyon.

"This seems foolish."

Arianna was eying the mountainside with obvious apprehension. Widget and Mathias seemed to share her doubts.

"I would prefer my bones whole, if possible," Mathias said.

"Ditto," Widget agree, "this doesn't look safe."

Maurus gave her an incredulous look. "You ran around with enough dynamite to level a fort!"

"Yeah, but I made those, I didn't carve out this mountainside."

Maurus looked down the mountain. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

"It's our only option, unless you want to turn back," Guth said gruffly.

"Well," Widget said, drawing out the word.

"We didn't have time to go the long way round before, and we definitely don't now," Maurus said firmly. He checked if his shield and weapons were properly secured before he took a careful step forward, leaning slightly backwards for balance.  _'It really is steep,'_ he thought. A few small stones was dislodged by the stone and rattled down the mountainside, loud in the quiet.  _'And the footing is treacherous.'_

"Come on, just stay behind me. If you slip, you just grab me," he said with more cheer than he felt.

"Yes, tumbling down inclines with you is very appealing," Arianna said, but he could hear she was moving along behind him. Dirt and gravel crunched as the others followed slowly.

"You can't complain about last time," Maurus answered amiably.

"Back then it was the only option. This time we don't have satyrs at our heels," Arianna countered.

"We're still in a hurry," Maurus said, "just for different reason."

"What happened back then?" Widget asked from behind them.

Maurus chuckled. "It's not exactly 'back then,' it's been a few weeks at most." He told them the story and it ended up with them trading stories as they made the descent. From time to time, one of them slipped or some scree would send one of them skidding down the slope and Maurus heart raced in his chest when that happened, but with everyone as alert as they were, all of them were stopped before they could get slide far.

It was at the end of an oddly hilarious and morbid anecdote about the Western Plaguelands, the bears there and a hunter Mathias used to know, that they reached the ledge. It jutted from the mountainside and fell around a hundred feet almost straight down before the slope again became a more reasonable angle. Maurus peered over it and saw a similar ledge further down and behind that, the Canyon. It looked like they were ending up over the eastern end of it. He glanced left and right and saw no easier way down.

"Good thing we don't have Ash tagging along anymore," he grumbled. "Well, time to climb."

Widget squeaked and Arianna sighed, both betraying their unease. Guth grunted and nodded at Maurus, and without another word his men walked right out on the edge of the cliff.

"I may not be the city elf I used to be," Arianna said, "but I have not climbed a mountainside in my life."

"And I'm from Gadgetzan," Widget put in. "This is the closest I have been to a mountain since I traveled through the Thousand Needles."

Maurus sighed.

"What about you Mathias?"

"Garm and I climbed a few of the Needles," he said sadly, "I'll be fine."

Maurus decided not to comment. Mathias had barely had time to bury his friend before they had marched to the Lumber Camp and had definitely not had any time to really grieve, so the wound must still be fresh.

"Right, get on," Guth said, kneeling down in front of Widget.

"What?" she said.

"You can't climb, but you can't weigh much. Get on."

Maurus smirked and turned his back to Arianna.

"That's the best idea we have," he said. When she didn't respond he half-turned to look at her. She was staring pointedly at his hooves, her face full of apprehension.

"I'm actually a good climber," Maurus said, an edge of irritation sneaking into his voice. He made a fist. "Strong hands. And the hooves work."

He looked back to the edge, at the orcs already beginning the climb, then made a show of shrugging his shoulders. "We can also leave you behind," he said nonchalantly.

That worked. He heard the soft stomps as she walked to his side. She hesitated for a moment, probably deciding how to grab on, before she climbed onto his back, ending up holding on to his armor and clothes, and wrapping her legs around his chest as best she could. It was a very awkward position, but it felt like she had a good grip.

"Just hold on," Maurus said as he turned and slowly groped around for places to put his hooves on the cliff. They were the last ones out over the edge and it was slow and uncomfortable going. It was at times like these that Maurus wondered why tauren had been created with the build they had, their neck pointing forward more than upward, unlike most other bipeds he met. His face was always almost up against the wall and it limited his view severely, making it harder to look for handholds. He snorted in irritation. It was no use agonizing over something he couldn't change.

"You are very uncomfortable. And you stink," Arianna said irritably, her breath tickling his neck. He could feel her tension in the stranglehold she had around him, her hands pressing down hard on his shoulders, her legs squeezing so tight around his chest that it almost hurt through his mail.

"You don't exactly smell like a meadow in spring either," he huffed, feeling for the next handhold. "And I didn't get this armor so people would have a pleasant time riding me."

Grunts and the scrabbling of boots against the rock drifted up from the climbers below.

"In fact, last time someone taller than my waist was where you were," he added, descending three feet in a few quick movements that had Arianna yelping, "I got stabbed."

"Warn me next time you drop like that," she hissed. Maurus carefully didn't shrug and pushed away the amusement he felt at Arianna completely without her usual nonchalance.

"Sorry," he muttered, "I forgot you aren't used to this."

"I'll live," she answered edgily, "just-"

Widget interrupted her with a loud yell and the even louder rapport of her blunderbuss firing.

Maurus couldn't turn without losing his grip, but the pained feminine cry told him everything he needed to know. ' _Stupid,_ he thought,  _'how did we miss them?'_

"Succubi," Arianna hissed. He could feel her half-turning on his back, her left hand letting go of his shoulder plate.

His heart sped up, and his helpless fear only increased when he looked down and saw that he was only a halfway down.

"Take the knife, or my mace, in my belt," he said frantically, searching for footholds as the fluttering of bat wings and musical, yet mocking laughter filled his ears. Shouts sounded below and there was the soft sound of steel sliding on leather as someone drew their weapon.

Arianna ignored him, and dark syllables spilled from her lips. Her weight shifted on her back as she gestured with her free hand. With her pressed this close to him, he could feel a rush of feverish heat run through her as she completed her spell and he allowed himself a vicious smirk as he heard the pained moan and moments later, the wet crash of her landing below them.

"No!" Maurus recognized the voice of Graka. The shout turned into a scream and Maurus glanced down just in time to see the flailing orc hit the ground legs first, crumbling as his legs were crushed beneath his weight.

"I'll rip off your wings!" Guth roared below him. The other orcs cursed the demons as well.

Arianna burned with power as she spoke more alien words, her efforts reward with another shriek. Below him, he saw the succubus crash headfirst into the cliff and bounce off, oblivious to anything but the pain of the burns and necrosis spreading across her skin.

Arianna pressed against him before twisting, turning to their right this time and she let out another stream of demonic words, but a leathery crack made her gasp out in pain. A moment later, Maurus felt soft, surprisingly strong hands tug on his left hoof, pulling it free from the cliff and making him desperately tighten his grip on the handholds. He felt Arianna shift again, beginning another spell and heard another snap of a whip that stopped the stream of demonic words.

"Incoming!" she said sharply as he finally found another place to put his hoof and went down another foot. This time the he saw the hands wrap around his wrist, but they retreated when Arianna jerked back and there was a sharp crack, probably a nose breaking.

Widget's gun boomed again, and another succubus screamed in pain, though there was no sound of a crash. A random thought darted through Maurus' head:  _'How does she load that gun?'_

Arianna's legs tightened on his chest and he felt a tug as something pulled at her. She hissed, and her other hand also let go of him, leaving her hanging only by the legs. A whip lashed out again, but this time he didn't register the sound, only the numbing, burning pain as it hit him over the right hand, making his hand slip from the rock. His mind was so focused on forcing his unresponsive hand back onto some handhold that he hardly noticed the slight pull on his belt. He did notice the shriek from right behind him though and realized that the pull on his belt had been where his skinning knife was sheathed.

"Where'd you get her?" Maurus huffed, managing a few quick feet down in the short moment they succubus seemed stunned by the development, as Arianna again gripped him with terrified strength.

"Eye," Arianna answered, before several cracking whips interrupted them. Arianna's breath was forced from her by the impacts, while Maurus' right hand was hit by a single lash. His fingers slipped from the rocky outcropping and he half-turned on the cliff and finally got a good view of their situation as whips cracked against his armored side.

Down below, two orcs had managed to get safely down and had gathered around their broken comrade. The rest of the group was still stuck on the wall, harried by the succubi. Mathias was only holding on by one hand, swinging his sword wildly at any demon coming close, as was Guth. Widget had managed to get a good hold on his back with just her feet and was frantically loading her blunderbuss. Two succubi were attacking Guth, trying to get him to fall the remaining thirty feet. The rest of the orcs were clinging to the cliff face, trapped by just a few succubi that seemed more determined on keeping them there than really attacking them.

The last three succubi were in front of Maurus, their beauty marred in places by scorched or sunken, diseased-looking patches of skin. They were raising their whips again. Maurus changed his positon slightly, trying to shield his hand with his body.

It worked, though mostly because they were aiming at Arianna, who was chanting the words to another spell, but the words turned into a shaking breath as the whips cracked again.

Maurus eyed the succubi, his heart pounding in his chest, both hands throbbing with pain. Again the whips lashed out, cutting across his nose and interrupting another of Arianna's spells. Below him he heard Mathias cry out in fury and when he glanced down he saw that he had leapt from the cliff face and was now clinging to a plummeting succubus, stabbing it as they fell.

He decided in the instant the whippings ceased, most likely because the succubi were stunned by Mathias' stunt. He wasn't getting any further down like this. A few lashes more on his hands and it would be impossible to hold on to the cliff.

"Hold on," he growled. He found a handhold, let all his weight hang by his arms and put his hooves directly against the cliff face and pushed off with all he had, turning as he did. He heard Arianna breathe in sharply and felt her tighten her grip on him even further as they sailed through the air. Maurus said a silent prayer of thanks as he saw the succubi freeze even as he screamed out his fear. He crashed into one of them and wrapped on hand around her throat and managed to get his other hand around the left one's leg He felt the pop of her ankle reverberate down through her arm as she cried out, shrill and loud.

They fell, the succubi flapping their large wings desperately, but they gathered speed swiftly in spite of it. Even carrying something as small as imps had slowed them, he'd seen that at the garrison, so they had no hope of carrying a tauren and a blood elf aloft, but they still slowed the fall.

"Jump when you can," Maurus said, jerking his head back and forth to avoid the kicks of the one he had around the ankle and the claws of the one he had around the neck. He was only partially successful. He felt blood well up on the side of his face and down his snout from the claws and a kick had him seeing stars, even though some of the kick's power was lost when the hoof glanced off his horn.

He tightened his grip around the succubus' neck, feeling her spine dig into his fingers, and she stopped clawing at his face and instead tugged at his hand, trying to loosen his grip. He felt Arianna push off from his back, and he tried to push the succubus he was strangling beneath him before they hit the ground.

They crashed down onto the steep slope. Maurus landed on the legs of the one he was strangling, and he could feel her breath against his hand as she screamed. He roared along with her as he felt bone break in his right leg. It went out under him and he collapsed down onto his shoulder with enough force to cut his roar short as the air was forced from his lungs. The succubus went silent when a sharp crack sounded as Maurus tightened his grip on the succubus throat in response to the pain slamming up his shoulder.

The other succubus crashed down onto the slope and they began tumbling down the mountainside in a cloud of gravel and dirt, the repeated shocks of his legs hitting the earth making fuzzy lights appear in his vision. He tugged her toward him, getting a kick to his head for the trouble that put more stars in his vision and made him bite his tongue hard enough that he tasted blood. His grip loosened and she slipped from his grasp, pushing off the hill and taking to the air as Maurus tumbled further downhill. He tried blindly to get a grip on her again, but quickly gave up the attempt and turned his gaze downward, trying to stop his headlong slide. It hurt like hell as he dug in his hoof and his hands, but after a few long seconds of his fingers being scraped raw and his broken leg sending bolts of lightning up through him, he managed to stop.

He looked down at his leg, trying to assess the damage, but the leather and mail made it impossible to see and he couldn't feel if the skin had ruptured or if he was bleeding because of the pure agony drumming through it in time with his heartbeat, overpowering all other senses in the leg and making his head spin nauseatingly.

Breathing hard, he looked back up the slope and saw, upside down and blurred by tears, that the battle was drawing to a close. Dead succubi lay on the slope or were tumbling down it like broken dolls. Two succubi were flying away, while a third one was crashing to the ground, face contorted in pain, no doubt the work of Arianna. She stood beside the orcs who had managed to get down from the cliff, still chanting. They were hacking down another succubus that had gotten too close.

Widget shot one of the fleeing succubi out of the sky just before Guth jumped the last few feet down the slope and Widget hopped down from his back. They were the last to get down and Maurus felt something twist inside when he saw the other two orcs who had fallen to their deaths. That was fully half of Guth's men that had died on that climb. Anger and grief was very apparent in Guth's movements when he brought his axe down on the wings of a still twitching succubus. It took one strike for the right wing and two for the left. As the demon gurgled in pain, its last comrade fell to the ground, reduced to a mess of peeling flesh and withering muscle by Arianna's final spells.

The slope fell silent.

"Get him up," Guth said flatly, "Farr and Morl will have to wait." Two of the orcs picked up Graka, each taking one of his arms over their shoulder. Graka's body below the waist was limb and broken, but to Maurus' surprise, he twitched and moaned pitifully, badly injured but still alive.

Arianna and Mathias followed them silently as the group walked slowly down to where Maurus lay. Both limped slightly. Mathias was covered in blood and dark ichor. Arianna's clothes were torn and her arms and shins were stained with blood.

Maurus tried to push himself up, but the pain lancing up his shoulder made him fall back to the ground with a gasp.

"Can you walk?" Guth asked gruffly when the group reached him.

"I can limp," he gasped. "Just need a hand up."

Guth's expression told Maurus that he didn't believe a word, but he and the other orc not carrying anyone took hold of his good arm and helped him stagger to his feet. Then they helped him get his arms around their shoulders and made the slow descent, grunting with effort.

They hadn't made it far, only halfway to the next ledge, when they saw something big fly up towards them. The silhouette was unmistakable; a wyvern with a rider and it alighted on the slope just below them moments later.

"What are you doing here?" the rider asked. He was an uncommonly slender orc with his black hair in a topknot. He was frowning at them and the wyvern was growling low in its throat.

"We got through the tunnels. We have important information for Zolan," Guth said. Maurus had been about to speak, but he was feeling drained and sluggish, so Guth beat him to it.

"And you look like you need a healer," the rider said, his eyes moving from one injured warrior to another.

"You think?" Guth growled. The rider's face twisted and he moved backwards a bit on the wyvern.

"Put him here, I'll take him down."

Graka seemed unconscious, but he moaned pitifully when he was laid in front in front of the rider.

"Tell Zolan that the demons are marching on the Durotan farms. He needs to get the message on the way immediately," Guth said as they secured the orc on the wyvern. "And we found one of the exit tunnels. I can find the way back later."

The rider nodded and tugged on the reins of the wyvern. It made a few loping strides before leaping into the air with great grace and gliding down towards the Canyon.

They followed in sullen silence. Maurus' good leg was throbbing almost as much as his broken one when they reached the ledge. It was another drop, around fifty feet, but to their right the cliff fell far less steeply and came down on the short gentle slope that led down to the cliffs of the western Demonfall Canyon. A round valley was cut into the rock, almost a mirror image of the one in the eastern end of the Canyon, with similar buildings. A wide gorge snaked its way east from the valley, disappearing from view as it rounded a steep cliff jutting out from the mountains. The valley was full of Horde warriors and a few pyres smoldered on the edges of it. It seemed there had been more demons here than to the east.

They trudged very carefully down a steep ramp down into the valley. The guards on the edge of the crowd only gave them a cursory glance before letting them pass without comment, seemingly expecting them. Once they were past the outer edges of the army, no-one paid them more attention than a quick look. They were just another group of weary warriors among many.

Despite the stink in the air, the smell of old blood, charring bodies and the corruption on every breath, the group relaxed considerable as they moved between the soldiers. Back with the army, they were as safe as they were likely to be in the foreseeable future. Now they just had to find Zolan and the healers.


	11. Rest and Request

Ashenvale Adventures

Rest and Request

They put Maurus down among a few dozen wounded who had been gathered some way into the valley, beside the others with twisted and crooked limbs. Some moaned and whimpered, some were still like the dead or sat, staring hollow-eyed at nothing, or simply waiting in silence. He counted eleven healers attending to the wounded and the pile of soiled linen and blankets told him that a lot more had already been treated.

He propped himself up on his good arm and gingerly found the least painful position for his leg. Compared to many of the others, he was lucky. The feeling of bone scraping against bone when he moved was agonizing, but at least he was now certain the bone had not pushed out through muscle and skin. Still, his breathing was strained by the pain.

"You have guts," Guth said gravely. He and the orcs straightened, faced the four others and saluted, raising closed fists to their chests, right above their hearts. "You all do. We wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for you."

Mathias and Maurus mirrored the gesture. So did Widget after a moment's hesitation, seeming confused at being addressed like that. Maurus winced as his shoulder protested against the movement.

Guth turned to fully face Arianna, who hadn't reacted. "You are a force to be reckoned with and you have proved your loyalty," he said seriously. "I apologize for our distrust. And the 'traitorous whore' thing."

"Thank you," she said flatly. She still didn't return his salute, but Guth didn't seem surprised. The other orcs bristled at her tone, but simply followed Guth as he turned.

"I'll take the news to the people in charge. Farewell," he said over his shoulder and they muttered goodbyes in response. As the orcs walked away, they heard him tell his surviving men, voice quiet and solemn: "Get the men we left behind."

Widget was also edging away, looking restless. She smiled a wide, uncertain smile at them and said: "Well, see you later." She pointed a finger over her shoulder and added: "I have to check up on my colleagues." They waved at her as she hurried off, leaving just Arianna and Mathias behind with Maurus.

"It looks like we have some waiting in store," Mathias said, dropping down to sit at Maurus' right. Three deep rents had been ripped through his cheek and the armor on his shoulder had been peeled back and the flesh beneath shredded. He'd wiped the worst of the blood from his face and neck, though some remained in his wounds, making them stand out starkly against his pallid skin. Maurus' felt a dull spark of amusement as he looked down at his own hands and saw a similar contrast, his raw and bloodied fingers standing out starkly against the white fur peeking out from under his armor.

Arianna lowered herself to sit opposite them. She moved carefully, trying to project her usual grace. She was only partially successful, unable to hide her exhaustion and discomfort. There was blood on her arms and legs and Maurus recalled glimpsing how torn up her back was while they walked.

' _Strong and stubborn'_ he thought, as she cradled the crystal head of her staff and breathed deeply, seeming to draw more than just breath inside her. He frowned, but he couldn't deny that it seemed to be doing her some good. She sat up straighter and her eyes were brighter when she caught his gaze, a slight scowl on her face. "You are reckless," she said.

"It worked," he grumbled, wincing as his shrug sent a wave of numbing pain through his shoulder. He dug his hands into one of his pouches, rooting around till his abused fingers closed around a little roll of rough cloth and a small flask, which was miraculously still intact. It was filled with cheap, very strong liquor that only someone desperate for a buzz would drink, but it worked wonders at preventing wounds from festering.

"You should get patched up," he said, pulling the items out of the pouch. He followed her gaze when she pointedly looked down at his leg. As if in response to her look, a fresh wave of pain rolled up through him, making his head spin a little.

"My leg hardly needs bandages. Or disinfection. Your back, on the other hand," he said, his word only a little unsteady. He waved his hand in a little circle. "Turn around." A weird expression flickered across her face before she snatched the linen and flask from his hand and rose, walking away without a word. Maurus frowned.

"I take it modesty is not a big thing among tauren?" Mathias chuckled.

Maurus glanced at him in puzzlement. "Seems like a silly thing to let get in the way of treating a wound," he muttered sourly. Mathias tilted his head from side to side before answering: "You may have a point. But we Forsaken have a reputation as being too pragmatic, so I might not be the best judge."

They were silent for a few moments, before Mathias spoke again: "She's right though. You are reckless."

Maurus thought for a moment, before he chuckled. "I know people who swear that being reckless is a good thing. And she might have included you in that comment. You jumped too."

Mathias made a sweeping motion with his right hand, indicating his entire body, before pointing between himself and Maurus. "You weigh at least four times as much as me, and the elf is probably one more me on top. And I was further down."

"Well, we lived. Staying there being whipped seemed a bad idea, even if the landing was worse than I hoped." He looked Mathias up and down. "How are you faring?"

Mathias patted his legs and made a show of inspecting his torn and bloody wrists. "A couple of strains, sprains and fractures," he said. Then he poked the wounds on his shoulders, his fingers sinking disgustingly into the mangled flesh. "I won't bleed out, so these aren't an issue. They merely hurt a little."

"Sometimes you seem to have it easy," Maurus grumbled good-naturedly.

"There are drawbacks," Mathias said dully. There was a severity in his words that made Maurus hesitate to reply and when Mathias didn't volunteer anything else, they fell silent. Mathias dug out a cloth and a whetstone and began cleaning his sword. Maurus prodded his leg carefully, but even the light touch sent spikes of pain up the limb and he quickly withdrew the hand. Instead he took his cue from Mathias and also got out his whetstone.

They sat in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable considering the somber note their conversation had ended on and their gloomy surroundings. Maurus ran the stone down the edge of his axe, hardly even conscious of the motion, his eyes roaming the valley. Opposite the where the Canyon snaked back towards the Hellscream Monument were more tunnels and people were moving to and from them with some regularity. Maybe they were still exploring or maybe they had men trapped in there too. He didn't want to think about it. The bodies and wounded he could see, even sitting down, was ample proof that the cost of this venture was already high.

Maurus was glad to be distracted by Arianna's return. She looked little different, only the linen peeking out over the edges of her dress along her neck revealing that there had been any change at all. She handed the remaining linen and the flask back to Maurus and again lowered herself carefully to the ground. The flask was empty, and though it was not very large for Maurus, it was pretty big in her hands and he hadn't expected her to use it all. He looked from the flask to Arianna.

"Worse than I thought", he said, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm under his fingers, though a far cry from the almost blistering heat that ran through her while she wove her spells. "How are you feeling?"

"Pain is part of the art," Arianna said, briefly resting her hand on his. "And the price of admission in some places."

"You just took a whipping, a bad one judging from how much of this you used!" Maurus said, brandishing the flask for emphasis, both impressed and somewhat outraged she seemed to think it wasn't worth mentioning. "We have armor, but I doubt you hide leather or mail under that dress."

Her lips twitched a little and Mathias chuckled.

"I've grown accustomed to it," she said, holding out an arm that at this distance showed even more scars than he had noticed before. Maurus had no response to that and just squeezed her shoulder gently and lowered his hand.

"Some groups, like those serving the Shadow Council, are very enthusiastic about the ritualistic infliction of pain," she added in a more quiet voice. Maurus scowled. Mathias' whetstone slid to a stop and he raised his head from the weapon to frown darkly at Arianna.

"Captive or member?" he asked, the softness of his voice hiding an edge sharp as a razor. Arianna answered his frown with a cold smirk and Maurus could feel tension seep into him as well. The conversation was taking a worrying turn. He pointedly laid his axe on the ground and placed his hands in his lap. Arianna's smirk lost the ice as her gaze moved to him.

"I ingratiated myself with the satyrs at the Shattered Peak." She hefted her staff and added: "Took this from their leader's cooling corpse."

Comprehension dawned on Maurus. "So that's how it was," he snorted. He thought a bit more and mused: "The Shattered Peak is down south, around-"

"On the border between Ashenvale and the Stonetalon Mountains," Arianna confirmed, again laying her staff across her lap. Maurus felt a hint of a smile along his muzzle.

"So you came from the mountains and that's why you didn't know your way around Ashenvale?"

"This is my first visit to the lands of the Kaldorei," she confirmed.

Maurus whistled, impressed, nodded at Arianna and said: "You made it really far on your own and with all those satyrs after you. How do you find the Forest of Stars and Spirits?"

She raised an eyebrow and said: "That is not a name I've ever heard before."

Maurus shrugged. "That's what my people call it. It seems very well-chosen if I that drunken elf captain in Ratchet told me the truth about the wisps. So?"

"He was told the same thing I was," she said. She thought for a moment. "The forest is beautiful, wilder than any I have ever seen. And dangerous." She smiled at him and nodded at Mathias. "And the inhabitants were just a little less hostile than I expected."

Maurus chuckled and put his hands out, palm up, in a helpless gesture. "Couldn't leave a skinny little thing like you behind, could I? You'd have gotten lost and starved to death."

"Starving was the least of my worries," she said easily.

"It looks like it comes naturally to you though," Mathias put in. "Does food offend you?"

"No," Arianna said. "I just have standards, unlike you gluttonous rabble."

"I call you  _picky_ ," Mathias said. The exaggerated emphasis he put on the last word convinced Maurus that he at least wasn't taking the conversation seriously. That was a relief. Since he had mentioned the Sunwell in the tunnels, he'd wondered whether their animosity was serious or just their way of interacting, but this exchange felt more like teasing than actual arguing. Still, he was not the best judge of such matters, so an interruption could hardly hurt.

"Well, today we have nothing else to do, so: Food," he said, interrupting the exchange as he dug the last morsels up from the pouches on his belt.

"Hm, roasted or raw?" Mathias mused, as he looked from the still smoldering pyre to the slope up the mountain.

Maurus fought to keep the revulsion off his face as he realized what Mathias was talking about. He'd heard many things about the undead, but had long ago decided to give at least the members of the Horde the benefit of the doubt, just like he did with the trolls. He wasn't quite sure if Mathias was serious or not, but he managed to keep his face blank as he said flatly: "I think both would be bad for you."

Mathias leaned back on his hands, smirking slightly, not giving Maurus any clue whether it was just a joke or not and answered, seemingly very seriously: "Well, we can't have me getting sick. I guess I'll wait till we get back to civilization."

Maurus shook his head and turned to Arianna, who was digging into her own food, which looked as unappetizing as Maurus' own. Now that Mathias had mentioned it, he couldn't help but agree that she was very thin. Of course, compared to tauren, anyone except maybe dwarves were skinny, but even compared to the smaller races of the Horde she was lanky. Only the forsaken and the trolls were similar and for many of the former the term 'skeletal' was very literal. Thinking back on the few other blood elves he'd seen, he couldn't decide whether she was out of the ordinary. Maurus shrugged and pushed the thought aside. He was a bad judge of what constituted being healthy in other races on the best of days and Arianna was the first elf he had spent any great deal of time with.

The conversation slowly trickled to a stop and the night passed for Maurus in a disjointed haze. His sleep was troubled by dreams of dark caves, unseen creatures stalking him and the feeling of suffocating, and he woke repeatedly, jolted awake, barely containing cries of pain, when he shifted and disturbed his injuries. When morning came, he was glad to give up on sleep and let himself be shaken to wakefulness by thin, strong fingers. The stench in the air and the dead, broken landscape around him was a gloomy sight to wake to but at least he was surrounded by allies, the blood red of the Horde uniform and the green and blue skin tones giving life to the black rock around him.

Arianna had woken him because a healer had finally appeared. After the terrible night, he was torn between hugging the troll priest and strangling him. In the end, he did neither and instead pointed out how little time it would take for the healer to attend to the worst of Arianna's and Mathias' wounds as the priest fixed his leg. The silver piece he slipped the troll, apparently only noticed by Mathias, probably had more to do with his success than his persuasiveness, but just the glimpse of Arianna's already soaked bandages made him decide that the silver was well spent.

Finally, after a healing session that seemed to last forever, and during which Mathias excused himself to go somewhere, Maurus sat up and stretched his hands over his head, relishing the simply joy of having full use of his arms and legs, even if they were still very sore. Arianna was sitting at his side, her posture relaxed, looking to the east, a slight smirk on her face. She gave him a quick glance. When he didn't seem to follow, she nodded in that direction and said: "Look."

Maurus rubbed his eyes before he tried finding what Arianna was looking at and spotted it almost immediately, a weirdly shaped lump, half his height walking towards them. It took him a moment to realize that it was Widget, trudging along, carrying his own backpack, along with Arianna's and Mathias'. With all that had happened he'd almost forgotten that they'd left them behind when they entered the mountain. She appeared to have difficulty with comfortably carrying them, but she didn't seem unduly bothered by their weight.

"That is the smallest, greenest kodo I have ever seen," Maurus joked to Arianna.

"She's far more useful than one. And smells better," Arianna answered. It seemed the healing and the sleep had done her good. Maurus rolled his eyes, but smiled wryly.

"Are we having this discussion again?"

"I will not rest until you realize the shortcomings of your beasts," she said. Her face was blank but there was a hint of mirth in her tone.

"You have your work cut out for you," Maurus muttered amiably. He turned his attention back to Widget as she reached them. "Thanks. You didn't have to get those for us," he said, smiling gratefully at her.

"I was over in that-" Widget began, only to stumble when he grabbed his pack and lifted it off her and the sudden shift in weight put her off balance. She almost fell before he managed to steady her with his free hand. "Over in the other end anyway," she finished, handing Arianna her bag. She looked around for Mathias. "Where's dead guy?"

Maurus looked at Arianna who returned his look with an expression and a helpless lifted hand that said 'why are you asking me?' Maurus shrugged and said: "Probably out to find more demons to cut up."

He hefted his backpack. It was not heavy, but it wasn't exactly lightweight either and looked back at Widget, reassessing her tiny, wiry frame. "You're pretty strong," he said.

She shrugged, putting her hands out to the sides an answered: "We swing the hammer when we tinker. Plus, when you walk around with your own bodyweight in metal on your back, normal supplies begin to feel light." She bobbed her head to one side before adding, almost as an afterthought: "Though your backpacks are really unhandy."

Maurus snorted and Arianna smirked, but neither voiced what they both seemed to think. It seemed too obvious to point that Widget was less than half Arianna's height and at most, a third of Maurus'. He rummaged in his pack, his stomach grumbling in anticipation of the food he'd left behind and as he found his prize, he asked Widget: "So, any luck with finding your friends?"

Widget deflated slightly and Maurus would have sworn that her ears drooped.

"They are all still missing. I just hope they're all alright somewhere in there. We were the only ones to make it out the other side so far."

"Sorry to hear that," Maurus said, gnawing on his bread and dried meat. "I'm guessing you're staying to help too then?"

"Actually, I think I'll go back to the lumber camp and try to get some more dynamite," she said. Her tone grew less worried and more eager as she added: "A controlled explosion might be needed at some point."

Maurus snorted. 'Controlled' was not a word he would have used about any goblin device, not unless he tacked on 'barely', but he didn't see the need to say that. His snort seemed to have been enough though, as Widget scowled at him like she'd read his mind. Before she could say anything, Arianna calmly stated: "As prudent a plan as any, I suppose."

Widget nodded emphatically. "I know my strengths and I'm not much use here now that we've set off the traps and used all my explosives."

She looked up at the sun, which was a pale shadow of its usual radiance seen through the murk of the Canyon and put down Mathias' backpack. "Well, they're taking off soon," she said. "Are you coming?" she added, looking at Arianna.

"No, I will be staying," Arianna answered.

"Huh. Not sure there'll be much for you to do," Widget said, as confusion flitted across her features. Then she shrugged. "Oh well, a little break and boredom never killed anyone. Except for my third cousin and you might say he bought it because he tried to fight it. Say hello to the dead guy for me."

Maurus chuckled and held out his hand. "Take care. Don't blow anyone up."

Widget took his hand in both of hers, her fingers barely wrapping around more than one finger and shook it, smiling hugely. Arianna nodded at her: "Try to keep your ears and hearing intact." Widget's smile widened even further before she raised a hand in greeting and walked away.

"I would have expected her to stay," Maurus said as Widget vanished from view.

"She's right, there most likely isn't much she can do for her friends," Arianna said. She was riffling through her backpack, probably checking everything was there. He'd done the same, though it had only taken a moment, as he didn't have much in his pack that he thought people might find worth stealing. After a few moments, she looked up again, seemingly satisfied.

"Well," Maurus said, getting to his feet, stretching once more and relishing having full mobility again. "That seems like enough lazing about. I'm going to find out what I can do."

"Let's say we meet here later," Arianna said as she also rose. "And please don't ruin the fine healing you just received," she admonished, in a tone that was usually reserved for unruly children.

"I'd say the same, but I doubt heavy lifting is what you're going to be doing. Take care," he said, waving a hand as he walked toward the tunnels.

For many of the workers, it seemed Widget was right on the money using the word 'boredom' for the work, but Maurus had little attention to spare for boredom. He instead found himself shamefully anxious as he worked. He spent the better part of the day hauling rocks out the tunnel with hands that slipped on the stone from how clammy they were and he had to force himself into the tunnel mouth each time, his breathing labored, less from the exertion than from fear. The corpses they slowly uncovered as they cleared the way only worsened his fear, terrible reminders of what would happen if the walls didn't hold up. He cursed and growled at anyone looking at him and somewhere under the anger, beneath the fear, he was aware that the only reason he hadn't been sent away was because he really was useful.

Somewhere around evening, they began to make out voices coming from behind the stone and the sound of Orcish spurred them on, giving them a burst of energy, though the overseer barked them down from digging too frantically. Maurus' hand slipped on the stone he was carrying away from the mound when he heard the smack of a hand hitting a cheek and a harsh admonishment. There was a whimper, but it was quickly drowned out as greetings passed back and forth through the small hole they had cleared, the shouts from Maurus' side cheerful, the others anxious but happy.

It didn't take them more than an hour to clear enough room to allow the soldiers to get through. There was a rush of green, blue and red as orcs and trolls rushed through and raced down the corridor towards the exit. After the desperate first wave had passed, others followed at a much more sedate pace. They all looked much worse than Maurus and the others had. Their armor was in tatters and not one of them were untouched by blood and dust and dirt. Many limped and had haphazard bandages on their chests and faces. Some of them were being led or pushed along, seemingly insensate to their surroundings.

Zolan and a group of other soldiers Maurus recognized came out last, walking backwards, still on guard, shields up, dented and broken weapons held at the ready.

"Get out, all of ya," Zolan said sharply, his tone brooking no argument and Maurus happily obeyed. All day, only his pride had kept him working through the worsening anxiety, but now he had a reason to leave that he could accept and he hurried out on the heels of the other workers. Merely being out of the shadow of the mountain made the stiffness in his muscles melt away and despite the worrying state the returning soldiers had been in, he found himself smiling as he found Arianna and Mathias.

Several hours passed with sporadic conversation. The moons climbed high in the sky, but none of them felt the call of sleep, not even Maurus, despite the wretched night he had had. Neither, it seemed, did Zolan, as he appeared some time later, waving at them as he approached, his face again split by a wide grin. He looked far too bright and awake for the time and the events of the last few days. His smile seemed an affront to the dead and wounded and it made Maurus clench his fists as his mood soured.

"Well, ya two others are also alive. That's good," Zolan said by way of greeting. He crouched down between Mathias and Arianna, leaning slightly on his spear, a new one, Maurus noted.

"In a manner of speaking," Mathias said, after slamming a fist to his chest in salute. Arianna also saluted the troll and Maurus grudgingly did the same. Zolan rolled his eyes at Mathias' comment and waved off the salutes.

"No need for that. I'm here to give you the news. You done great at this and the information you brought, well, it might be saving a lotta lives," Zolan said, tone turning more serious. "While I was in the caves, the ones out here sent word to the farms and Orgrimmar. With luck, the demons will be stopped before they make too much trouble. Ya might have just stopped the farmlands from burnin' down."

"We were lucky," Maurus grumbled, hands running idly over his dented shield, which lay in his lap.

"Ah, luck counts as much as anything else," Zolan said blithely. He detached a small leather purse from his belt. "What ya managed to do with that luck, that's all ya to claim." He tossed the purse towards Maurus. It jangled through the air and clinked audibly as he caught it and he noted with surprise how heavy it was.

"So's that," Zolan added as Maurus fumbled the string loose and heavy gold coins spilled out into his hand. He stared at the money. He did earn some coins here and there but more often than not, he survived on his own, with little need for money, and this was more money than he would earn in a month, or three, of seriously trying.

"Let never be said the Horde don't reward its heroes," Zolan said. When Maurus raised his head to look at him, he saw Zolan's lips curl in a lopsided smirk around his remaining tusk. "Even if they're just accidental ones."

"Thanks," Maurus said dumbly, still shocked at the small fortune in his hand. Zolan's eyes fell on Maurus' legs.

"I heard about your stunt. Reckless, but well, ya're never a fool unless ya fail. Ya're free to go. We can live with a little less manpower, now."

Maurus looked Zolan up and down. His armor had been mended, but it was still severely damaged and the smell of blood and sweat was heavy around him, easy to pick out even against the stink of the valley and the stench of the people around them. He frowned.

"What happened in there? I thought most of the demons had left," he asked.

Zolan's face darkened and his smile turned bitter. "They had," he said quietly. "Seems their boss likes his sport though. The Dreadlord stalked the caves and it took us some time to even notice what was happening."

He spat to his right and his smile vanished completely. Arianna's and Mathias' expressions grew dark in answer and Maurus clenched his teeth in anger.

"Too long," Zolan continued. "We've left at least half a hundred warriors behind in the caves and the Dreadlord got away. One of my windriders spotted him exiting the caves on the south side, so there must have been some way through." The muscles in his jaw stood out sharply as he clenched his teeth angrily and stared down onto the ground. Then he froze and raised his gaze from the red of Arianna's gown to her face.

"Could ya track him?" he asked, voice low but intense.

Arianna sighed. "I doubt it. I have a vague feel for him, but he has a huge lead that will only get bigger."

"Will this help?" Zolan asked, holding out a sharp piece of what looked like obsidian, about the length and width of his palm.

Arianna's eyes widened before she smirked, the expression harsher than it usually was on her face, and accepted the rock-like object. She raised and lowered it, seeming to weigh it. "You're smarter than you look, troll," she said. "This would do nicely." A moment later, however, her smirk faded and she shook her head. "We can't defeat a Dreadlord."

"I don't expect you to. Just find him and contact the soldiers, then we'll take care of it," Zolan said promptly. He clenched his fist. "I can't leave my post, but we can't lose his trail. The dead deserve vengeance."

Maurus and Mathias nodded in unison. That, it seemed, was something they agreed completely on. Arianna however, still looked doubtful.

"I'll get a windrider to take you over the mountain," Zolan said. He glanced at Maurus and Mathias and continued: "Ya two will have to do it the slow way."

Maurus gave Zolan a flat look. Mostly out of contrariness, he asked: "What makes you think I'm going along with that mission?"

Zolan snorted. "For one, I'm guessing ya want to see things through to the end and the only other way ya can contribute is by helping us make sure the tunnels are properly clear."

Maurus eyes were drawn to the tunnels and his heartbeat sped up momentarily at the sight of the yawning openings in the rock. He realized he'd gladly give up all the gold he'd just got to never enter those caves again. Zolan nodded, seemingly satisfied, but didn't elaborate, and for that Maurus was grateful. His pride had suffered enough today.

"I  _want_ to go back to the Barrens and never see another demon again," Maurus grumbled. This time, both Mathias and Zolan snorted.

"Well, I doubt the second part of that wish will be granted," Zolan said. His gaze flicked briefly to Arianna. "But the first one is what I'm asking of ya. Ya might even get some of the glory ya're missing by not being part of the force that kills the demon army in a day or two."

Maurus frowned, as it began to sink in that he was accepting Zolan's request. It almost made him tremble, as fear clashed with a surprising, feverish eagerness. The Dreadlord was a truly formidable foe to hunt. A mad smirk tugged at his lips and he nodded.

"Guess I'm in."

"Of course," Zolan said. There was no hint of surprise in his tone. He looked at Mathias. "And ya?"

"I won't be satisfied till every demon in that mountain is dead," Mathias said darkly, studying his sword, his expression grim. "And the Dreadlord is on the top of my list."

Zolan chuckled. "Some people would have just wanted to spend that reward. I like ya persistence. Ya have a lot in common with Guth."

The reminder of the orc dampened the feeling of electric excitement racing up and down Maurus' spine. He'd spotted the remaining orcs climbing the mountain to reclaim their comrades' bodies, but he had no idea how it was going for Graka.

"Shame about those two," Zolan muttered. "But they say Graka is past the worst."

"The spirits are kind," Maurus said solemnly, a slight weight evaporating from his heart. Zolan echoed Maurus' words, nodding gravely, before he stood from his crouch. "I thank you for taking this task," he said. "Just don't get yaself killed. Find him and make sure he gets dead, but don't take too many risks. He got enough of us already."

He gave them a perfect salute and they returned it, before they muttered goodbyes. Zolan turned to go, stopped and said: "Ya might, mind ya, I say might, get some company. Guth would probably be eager to kill the one at the top of that army." Then he hurried off and quickly vanished in the gloom.

Maurus looked down at his hand and realized it was shaking. He put it firmly on his thigh, but still, the trembles spread through his leg. "I must be mad," he said, his lips still pulled into the unnatural grin.

"Or really foolish," Mathias said blandly. The comment made Maurus bark out a short laugh.

"Only when we fail, remember? You volunteered too."

"I'm already dead, that messes with your priorities. What's your excuse?"

Maurus snorted, shrugged and looked up the mountain again, towering over them like a dark, scarred colossus It looked even more unwelcoming from this angle, all sharp edges and coal-black rock.

"We just made that climb," Maurus grumbled half-heartedly.

"At least this time, you won't have to worry about demons or dropping me," Arianna said blithely.

"I wasn't worried about dropping you at all," Maurus answered with exaggerated indifference.

She sniffed contemptuously. "You might be able to make the whole climb this time."

"That's the idea," Maurus said, lying down and closing his eye. "Now, you might be getting special treatment, but I would like some sleep before I have to trek back over that mountain again. So, hush."

He opened one eye just in time to see a look of mild irritation on Arianna's face. She gave him a mild glare and said quietly. "Sleep well then, cow, we don't want you splattered out over the mountainside."

"What about me?" Mathias said, though he didn't sound like he cared either way.

"We can most likely just stick you back together and you'll be fine."

Maurus expected them to continue bickering, but instead, they quickly fell silent. Despite the nervous energy coursing through Maurus, he also felt the pleasant, heavy feeling of a day's hard work in his body. Without throbbing pain to disturb him and with the reassuring presence of hundreds of Horde members around him, his drowsiness quickly overpowered him, ushering him into a deep sleep.


	12. Across the Plains

Ashenvale Adventures

Across the Plains

The sun burned down from a clear sky the soft color of peacebloom leaves. Not even a whisper of wind stirred the tufts of stubborn grass growing across the flat, sandy plains and the air was still and hot. Far to the west, the land rose in orange and red mountains, blurred by the shimmering air. To the east and north, the land stretched in a tan sheet that was only broken by the odd hill, until it met the blue dome of the sky. To the south, directly ahead, a large, lonely hill broke the horizon.

Maurus breathed deeply, feeling his chest swell with the familiar air and savoring the scent of dry earth. The sun's rays warmed the fur on his upper body and he was glad he'd put the leather and mail shirt he usually wore away. With each step he took, the lion carcass he'd slung over his shoulder bounced against his bare back and he was only just keeping himself from breaking into the relaxed jog he usually adopted when he traveled across the Barrens. It was an urge that grew harder to resist each day, but he doubted his companions would appreciate having to keep up with his long strides.

On one side of him, Mathias was stoically bearing the heat, hunched under a grey robe that covered most of his body. With his every step, the cloth rustled against him, an unpleasant and slightly worrying scratchy sound.

"We need to go further east." Arianna's voice held an edge, but she sounded much less irritated than she had been the first day. Maurus couldn't help the small smile his lips formed when he glanced at her. She walked on his other side with her usual grace, head held high and every step a smooth movement, but the elegance was completely at odds with how sweat poured down her face, which was reddened both by sunburn and by the sheer heat. What hair that wasn't hidden under the cloak he'd finally convinced her to wear after the first day in the sun was sodden and clung to her head and her eyes were squinted against the harsh glare of the sun. Ash, summoned again days ago, loped alongside them, as energetic as always, unbothered by the heat.

Maurus shook his head. "We're going a little further south," he said and pointed towards the hill ahead. The ruddy brown of the land and the hill was separated by a line of dark green, which danced and wavered in the haze. A thin line of almost white bordered the green, but Maurus knew they couldn't possibly see the water from here.

"This better be worth the delay," Arianna said, putting away the obsidian shard of horn she'd been using to track their quarry. Maurus let his smile fully appear on his face.

"Trust me, it will. It's time we get out of the sun. We won't catch anything if we collapse from exhaustion out here," he said. He could almost smell the scent of the palm trees and the water of the oasis. "And with the centaurs driven back to the mountains, the only thing we have to look out for is the wildlife."

"You had me at the promise of shade," Mathias said, shielding his eyes with one hand as he looked into the distance. He lowered the hand a moment later and quickened his pace. "Let's hurry up, I'm parchment dry here."

They passed into the shelter of the trees late in the afternoon and Maurus' companions let out twin sighs as they passed into the shade. Almost from one moment to the next, the air turned damp and rich with the smell of flowers and the slight, stale stench of algae. Maurus could feel the earth beneath his hooves grow moist as they made their way through the thigh-high grass, the strands of green whispering against their legs as they moved. Somewhere above them, a bird shrieked and insects buzzed quietly ahead.

The clear water shimmered in the sunlight like precious gems and the sight of the lake was as beautiful as he remembered it. The oasis was even larger than last time he'd been here, three wide pools shining in the sunlight, surrounded by lush greenery that was sprinkled with splashes of scarlet, violet and blue. It seemed the druids might be right. Maybe the debacle with the Wailing Caverns hadn't been a complete loss.

Maurus muttered a quiet prayer to the spirits of the oasis. Even after the tauren had mostly relocated to the more verdant Mulgore, the respect and appreciation of oases was something deeply ingrained in their culture, from the days when it was a reason to rejoice when an oasis came into view. He dropped the lion and his backpack a short distance from the water, making sure the lion rested on a thick layer of grass and turned to the water, beginning to loosen his pauldrons.

Mathias had sat down, leaning against a tree, his cloak and backpack discarded in a heap beside him. He'd opened a small jar and was smearing it's contents on his face and hands. It looked like fat, but when Maurus had caught a whiff of it a few days ago, he decided that it definitely wasn't just that. When he'd asked what it was, Mathias had just said it kept his skin from cracking and Maurus had decided that was enough information.

Arianna took off her travelling coat and wiped her forehead. "Void take this heat," she said, dropping her backpack unceremoniously onto the ground and pulling her traveling cloak over her head.

Maurus pulled his pauldrons off his shoulders and laid them on the ground beside him. "How on Earth did you manage to get to the Shattered Peak?" he asked. Unless she'd come from the west, she would have had to go through the Barrens to get there and it seemed unlikely she had come from the west.

"The caravan at least provided shade," Arianna said as her cloak joined her backpack on the ground. She pulled locks of sodden hair away from her face and added: "And you can easily travel through the Stonetalons without ever getting into direct sunlight. At least if you avoid-"

Maurus looked over at her when she abruptly stopped speaking. Her expression had frozen mid-word, mouth slightly open, when she'd looked at him. "What are you doing?" she asked, her tone flat.

"Take a wild guess," Mathias said. He'd put away the jar of weird paste and rested his head against the trunk of the palm tree. He looked like he was preparing for a nap. "Why do you think my eyes are closed?"

Maurus shrugged as Arianna looked over at Mathias and tugged off his trousers before walking down to the water. His hooves sunk into the mud, pleasantly cool, as he waded out into the water till it reached his navel. His ear twitched and his tail flattened a fly that had settled on his back as he stood for a moment, enjoying the contrast between the hot air and the refreshing water lapping against his body.

"Savages," Arianna muttered behind him and he snorted before he let himself fall forwards, arms out to the sides. The water closed around him in a soothing, cleansing embrace and he relished the quiet that enveloped him, enjoyed the feeling weightlessness. He reached out and dug his hand into the lake bed, feeling the slick mud against his fingers, his eyes searching the water for any sign of blue and bone. Even though the water was almost pure bliss against his body, it hadn't driven caution from his mind. Finding nothing, he turned onto his back and looked back over his belly at the shore and called: "I'm a savage? Why?"

"Shall I count the ways?" Arianna answered. She'd lain down on the grass and was looking up into the greenery above her. Ash stood in the mud, lapping up the water with a long, red tongue, the brown beard-like fur beneath his head soaked through.

"Just the most pressing one," Maurus said, sinking down to sit on his knees in the mud and beginning to rub his arm slowly, cleaning out filth, dust and old sweat. He sighed as the water around him lost its crystalline clearness and turned slightly cloudy. It had been too long since he'd had the chance to really get clean.

Arianna waved a hand in his direction. "You have no shame."

Maurus raised a hand from the water and studied his fingers and the dirt that had caked under his nails. "I'm a little ashamed about how filthy I've gotten. I blame your civilization for that shame," he said wryly. "Then again, you two are as bad as I am." He looked up from his fingers just in time to catch Arianna's glare and grinned. It was oddly gratifying getting a rise out of her, though he found that he was a little disappointed she didn't have a retort.

"You're saying no to an opportunity to get clean and I'm the savage?" he asked. Ash was now rolling back and forth in the shallow water and Maurus once again found the behavior of the demon disturbingly puppy-like. Arianna caught his gaze again and she sniffed contemptuously.

"Cleanliness is not a sign of sophistication. Even beasts clean themselves."

"They don't exactly do it with this fervor," Maurus replied. He noticed the dead lion behind Arianna and smirked. "Though some do it with considerably more limberness."

Arianna looked over her shoulder, then back at him. After a moment, she got it and rolled her eyes. "You are a crude creature," she said loftily.

"Crude but clean," he answered lightly. He scrubbed and scratched and slowly his fur turned from the dirty, light brown-grey to its natural dull white. With skin feeling slightly raw from the bath, he finally rose and waded back to the shore. He hadn't felt so good in weeks.

Arianna had gotten out needle, thread and the robe the succubi had shredded. Maurus hadn't even realized she'd changed clothing before he spotted her repairing the garment two days ago. Both of his companions had found some humor in him not noticing at all that she'd exchanged a robe that had practically exposed her entire back because of the shredding for a fresh one.

He shook himself violently as he passed her, showering her with droplets, a lazy smile on his muzzle. She half-turned her head to him, seemed to change her mind and groaned irritably as she returned her attention to her needlework.

"Shaking yourself like a dog does not support your claim that you're no savage," she said.

"But it works. Why are you so against practicality?" Maurus asked as he crouched next to the lion and slipped his skinning knife from the sheath at his belt. It slid easily through the skin of the dead cat and immediately, Maurus' free hand got soiled with blood.

"Should have done this first," he muttered, without any heat. He felt altogether too light and rejuvenated to mind getting the order of his two tasks mixed up.

"What was that about being practical?" Arianna asked, her neutral tone wholly unconvincing. "And would it kill you to get dressed?"

"Being practical is letting the sun dry me," he said. He looked at the heap of clothing and armor at his right and mused jokingly: "It would be even more practical washing my clothes now."

Arianna let out a long suffering sigh behind him. He smirked as he set to work, expertly skinning the dead beast.

"Fine, just as soon as I'm done with this. There is enough blood in my clothes already."

* * *

He was running, stumbling alone through the darkness. The walls were closing in, so slowly that he was almost tempted to think they weren't moving but he knew it was a futile hope. He couldn't see anything but the rock beneath his hooves, yet he knew, with complete certainty, that the tunnel was narrowing. There was a low, dull groan that throbbed in his ears, the only sound aside from the pounding of his heart and his heaving breath. The air felt thick and heavy, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't push out enough air to get another proper breath into his lungs. He was running, but it was like he was moving through water and his muscles were leaden and numb.

He turned a corner, certain of the movement despite being unable to see any part of the walls, and became aware of the sound of hooves echoing through the tunnel. He couldn't hear his own hoofsteps, but the distinct clack of hoof on stone drifted through the air behind him, unhurried, yet coming closer all the same. He looked behind him and for the first time saw color. Twin slits of green fire looked back at him and for a moment he felt relief, before a mouth under the eyes opened in a smile, revealing needle-like teeth that glowed white in spite of the darkness.

He stumbled and fell, slamming into the rock, but hardly feeling pain. He got up on his hands and knees, but when he made to rise to his hooves again, his back hit the ceiling. He couldn't breathe, but he scrambled forward, his back brushing against the ceiling, his arms scraping against the walls. He crawled and it felt like he was dragging his limbs through thick mud, the darkness seeming to cling to him, slowing him down.

He came to a stop when a large, coal black hoof appeared in his vision, larger than his own. He raised his gaze, eyes gliding over pale skin and obsidian armor to look up into a cruel smile and eyes glowing with fel fire and dark amusement. He was paralyzed as a hand, tipped with claws like daggers, reached out for him.

He woke with a gasp, his eyes snapping open to look up into a sky full of silver stars, a vast dome which was an immense comfort to him. His heart was beating as hard as it had in the nightmare, but his senses felt sharper and the feel of grass and earth beneath him, his clothes brushing against his fur and the ease with which he managed to sit up, was a far cry from the fuzzy sluggishness he'd felt while he slept. He greedily gulped in lungfuls of air, his lungs finally working again.

After a few moments of simply sitting there, breathing, he brought a hand to his face and rubbed his forehead, groaning quietly. Since they'd made it out of the tunnels, not a single night had passed without at least one such dream. He was no stranger to interrupted sleep, but it had been a while since his nightmares had been so vivid. Though if it wasn't for how terrifying they were, he would have welcomed the simplicity of nightmares where he was the victim.

He looked to the side and saw Ash standing between him and the trees, gnawing on a length of lion bone, but still watchful for anything that might sneak out of the greenery. The lion skin hung in on a branch some feet away, the meat long since packed away and the bones thrown out into the jungle. Instead of burning or burying the offal like he used to, Maurus had given it to Mathias, who'd eagerly scarfed it down, much to Arianna's disgust. The forsaken in question was lying a few feet away, his arms actually crossed across his chest, looking like a corpse shabbily prepared for a funeral.

Arianna's bedroll looked unused and her staff lay unattended on top of it, which was odd, considering she usually let Ash keep watch for her. A quiet splash drew his gaze down to the water, cast silver in the moonlight. Arianna was sitting with her back to him, the water reaching up to the small of her back. Her hair was out of its usual ponytail and spilled down past her shoulders, a shade darker than her skin and she was running her fingers through the damp locks, straightening out tangles and cleaning out the grime and dirt of the Barrens with handfuls of water. She looked tranquil, a graceful, pale figure rising from the glittering water.

Her serene bearing seemed at odds with the state of her back. It was a map of pain, lined with long, thin stripes of rougher skin, round bumps and angry bulbous bits of scarring. They all interweaved in a way that told Maurus the injuries had happened over a long period of time, scars on top of scars. It seemed she had been more literal than he expected after their run-in with the succubi, because there were both old and new marks from whips.

She sighed as she squeezed the water from her hair, much like Maurus had when he'd been bathing, and something in her posture made him realize she was about to turn.

"Are you keeping an eye out for snapjaws?" he asked, a little hurried, feeling a pang of guilt when she stiffened. He hadn't felt a need to cover himself and he'd stopped her from exposing herself further, but this much might be bad enough by her standards of modesty. "They can take a foot if you're unlucky," he added, keeping his voice light. "That's permanent unless you have troll blood."

"I am always careful about the places I bathe," she said, voice colder than he'd expected, beginning to scrub her arms. "I learned that the hard way."

"So did I," Maurus said, looking down as he rubbed his thigh. He could just barely feel the crescent of small dents. "At least I got the croco bastard. Tasted pretty good too, after a few hours over a fire."

He glanced up to find Arianna looking back at him over her shoulder. The luminous green eye was disconcerting after his previous dream, but the smile she gave him was genuine and without teeth. It seemed he hadn't offended her terribly. He smiled back.

"If I had followed your example, I would have nothing to say to the eating habits of our friend over there," she said, tilting her head in in the direction of Mathias. Her smile got a little harder. "As I recall, I did roast them though."

Maurus' gaze again drifted down to the patches of skin that looked like they had melted and set.

"You ought to take better care of yourself," he said quietly. He wasn't even sure she could hear him.

"I'm-" she began, one hand tightening into a fist.

"-used to it," Maurus finished for her. "Is that normal? Most dedicated practitioners I know stay back and let people like me take the brunt of the damage."

"I lead a very active life," she said. Her smile faded and her mouth twisted. "And some things are unavoidable."

"Starvation isn't," Maurus said, deliberately keeping the words light, as Mathias' jabs at her skinny body came back to him. He couldn't quite disagree now. "You should eat more, I can count your ribs." That wasn't quite true, but her ribs were pronounced enough to be noticeable.

"Please don't. In fact, please go back to sleep," she said mildly, her turning her head forward. Maurus lay back down and closed his eyes.

"I think I'm gonna  _make_ you eat more," he said amiably, closing his eyes. "Enjoy your bath, it'll be the last in a while."

"I will," she said and Maurus could hear the small smile in her voice. With the sound of regular, soft splashes and the occasional whisper of a stirring leaf in his ears, he fell asleep again and found no nightmares waiting for him.

* * *

The next morning they left the oasis and continued, traversing the sea of dirt and golden grass for days, seeing nothing but wildlife: kodos, lion, skittish deer and the occasional raptors. Though Maurus had found it fortunate that the lion had suicidally attacked them, he was glad that the animals kept their distance. A coordinated attack from raptors or lions could become a problem. He decided they probably didn't like the smell of Mathias or Ash and considered his suspicion confirmed when he left the group to gather more food and only had to search for an hour before he was attacked by a lone raptor. He didn't mention it though. He doubted they would appreciate being told that that the animals shunned them.

Arianna slowly began guiding them more east than south and Maurus got a niggling suspicion of where they were headed, but whatever trepidation he felt about their apparent destination was forgotten when Arianna began getting a fainter and fainter sense for the dreadlord. One morning they woke to find that she'd lost him completely.

"Plague and pestilence!" Mathias swore, the words filled with icy fury. He hurled his shield and sword to the dirt and took a heaving breath, his fingers curling into claws ready to rip or strangle. Somewhere in the back of Maurus' mind he found the heaving breath the most startling but the thought was forgotten almost immediately, lost in his own frustration. He crossed his arms and took a deep breath, making an effort not to grind his teeth as Arianna tried her spell again.

She was still gripping the piece of black horn tightly in one hand, her eyes closed. Her staff pulsed once more with flame as she mouthed a steady stream of quiet words that had become familiar, if no less understandable, over the days. She opened her eyes and crouched to let Ash study the horn. He sniffed the obsidian shard, prodded his skull-like snout against it, before turning in a circle around himself and tilting his head to the side. She rose and shook her head.

"Are you sure there isn't anything?" Maurus asked, glancing at Mathias, who looked like a lion ready to pounce. He tried to keep his tone neutral, but the frown that appeared on Arianna's face told him he failed.

"Of course I'm sure," she said irritably, putting the horn fragment away.

"You almost look relieved," Mathias accused. He picked up his weapons again and inspected them, running a finger along the edge of his sword. The impression was that of someone on the edge of violence, but Maurus doubted it would actually come to that. Mathias was a furious fighter, but he didn't seem like one who'd attack allies. Arianna looked to be of the same opinion. She didn't seem impressed.

"I admit it would be a relief to give up the chase of the dreadlord," she said levelly, her eyes narrowed to slits, "but I don't abandon what I begin."

"And how are we going to find him now?" Mathias spat the words, but stopped looking like he was ready kill something.

"The regular way. We search," Maurus said, with more confidence than he felt. He saw only a slim chance of success. The dreadlord simply had too much mobility with the ability to fly and the intelligence to use it. As things stood now, they could end up searching the entire continent without finding him.

"It's odd how the trail faded. It seemed so strong in the beginning, despite the distance" Arianna said. "Then it faded with more and more speed."

"How does that help us?" Mathias asked bitterly.

"With the lead he already had, it would be odd if it was just more distance that made the trail vanish like that," Arianna said. There was a slight hint of lecturing in her voice, mostly hidden in her flat irritation. She clearly didn't care for Mathias' hostility. "The trail didn't vary at all the first week, despite our target likely increasing his lead very quickly."

"Like an animal suddenly gaining more speed?" Maurus asked. He wasn't sure he followed, not exactly an expert on magic, much less warlock magic, but he thought he could see the similarity to his usual hunting.

"More like if you kept pace easily before and then it just doubled its speed each day for a week," Arianna said.

' _That does sound weird'_  he thought, frowning, before shrugging. Whatever the case, standing around wouldn't be of any use. "So we follow our last heading and hope for the best," he said firmly. "Let's get going."

No more needed to be said and they set off. It became a long, miserable day in the sun. Disheartened by losing their track of their target, none of them felt like talking and the sun was as merciless as always. The heat was no worse than the previous days, but in the oppressive silence Maurus found none of the enjoyment of the previous days. It wasn't until late in the afternoon, as Maurus began to recognize landmarks, that a word was spoken. Mathias shielded his eyes with one hand as he looked slightly south of their chosen route and asked sullenly: "Do you get sandstorms here?"

In the distance Maurus saw dust rising far into the air, a murky curtain stretching from west to east that muddled the pure blue sky. He shook his head. "Not here. You need to go further south or to Desolace for that. And you aren't in doubt when a sandstorm is looming." He frowned and added, baffled: "This is traffic."

The wide road of beaten earth was usually quite busy, being a major trade route, but the usual traffic paled in comparison to what they saw now. The road was completely lost beneath the river of people traversing it, a wide mass of people that were ten times as wide as the road itself. Wolves and raptors carried their riders with great speed along the edges of crowd while kodos pulled wagons through the center of the migration. A large part of the crowd, at least a third, were made up of professional soldiers, marked by the dull red armor of the horde.

They were all moving east and Maurus realized that the road and their own path would intersect behind a familiar line of hills, behind which he knew the land dipped towards the ocean. The pall of smog that was visible over the hills removed any trace of doubt about where they were headed.

"That makes no sense," Maurus said. "What would he do in Ratchet?"

" _How_  would he do anything in Ratched?" Mathias asked. "Even Varimathras doesn't walk around freely and he has our Lady's confidence."

Maurus looked at Arianna as a horrible thought occurred to him. "Can dreadlords change their form?"

Arianna gave him a curious look, seeming a little impressed, but more surprised. He let out a disgruntled sigh. "About a tenth of my tribe is as comfortable on four feet as on two," he groused, "and tricksters are abundant in our stories. So?"

"I've never heard of it," she said, eyebrows knitted in thought. "But knowledge on the Nathrezim is scarce and that is a secret I suspect they would guard jealously."

"A year ago, the deathstalkers took a scarlet crusader off the hands of a soldier I know," Mathias said grimly, his expression darkening into a murderous glare. "The crusader was raving about 'the terrible truth' and screaming that the Grand Crusader was a demon. Varimathras is in charge of the deathstalkers."

"I haven't heard of this," Arianna said dubiously. Maurus swore he saw her ears perk with interest. Or maybe it was just the tilt of her head.

"Of course you haven't. No-one took it seriously, the scarlets are lunatics," Mathias said impatiently, "but it supports the theory."

"Bringing us back to what the dreadlord might have come here for," Maurus said.

"Ten coppers say it is related to this migration," Mathias said. For the first time all day, he straightened slightly and his steps became more energetic as he quickened his pace. "Let's find out what is up with this crowd."

The air became thick with the smell of beasts and travelers as they approached the column and the din quickly became deafening. The travelers shouted at their beasts, barked, talked and laughed at each other while the beasts snuffled and grunted and bellowed. The hundreds, if not thousands, of feet beat out a dull roar that enveloped it all. Maurus noted with surprise the abundance of blood red and gold in the stream of Horde. The blood elves were still vastly outnumbered by the trolls, orcs and tauren, but they made up a significant part of the crowd. He knew the blood elves had come to Kalimdor, but he hadn't appreciated just how many there were before this day.

They fell in along the crowd, the only ones paying them any heed a wolfrider that had to swerve to avoid hitting them, shouting a curse at them as he passed and a few that gave Ash and Arianna wary glances.

"Use your eyes, kodo dung!" Maurus shouted after the retreating figure, before something occurred to him and he quickly turned to Arianna. Thankfully, she didn't seem inclined to actually curse the wolfrider. Instead she'd fallen back a bit towards a group of blood elves. She patted one of them on the shoulder, a woman clad in red-lacquered armor, over which she'd thrown a thin red cloak with a hood. The elves nodded at her and intoned greetings in a melodic language Maurus didn't understand. He joined them just as Arianna asked:

"Why is everyone going to Ratchet?"

The elf raised an eyebrow and her mouth turned up in a smirk Maurus found decidedly conceited. "Where have you been, sister, to be so uninformed?" she asked. There was an amused lilt in the way she spoke the words, like she found it funny to use them. Her gaze fell on Maurus and Mathias and comprehension flashed over her face. She wrinkled her nose for an instant, almost too quickly to see, before she added, tone deceptively light: "Ah, running with the savages."

Maurus' jaw tightened, but he forced himself not to clench his fists. There was no reason to plant his fist in the face of the stupid little elf and the fact that she could likely heal herself didn't make it a more sensible action. Arianna ignored the comment and asked again, slightly more insistent: "What is going on?"

The woman's smirk widened into a full smile and her eyes shone with eagerness. "Our Prince is within reach again," she said reverently. "The Dark Portal has opened!" Arianna simply stopped. The blood elves chuckled and didn't seem inclined to do the same, so Maurus put a hand on Arianna's shoulder and pushed her so they could keep up.

"And why is everyone going to  _Ratchet_?" Maurus asked, when it didn't seem like Arianna would pick up the conversation. The blood elf looked at him like he was an imbecile and hesitated just long enough that Maurus could tell it was deliberate.

"The horde is mobilizing, to secure Draenor and aid us in reaching our kin." She sniffed. "That is, after all, our entire reason for joining you."

Maurus forced his annoyance down and asked, deliberately talking slowly, like he was speaking to a child: "But why are people going to  _Ratchet_  and not Orgrimmar?"

"The orcs lost a lot of ships to sabotage, a fortnight ago," the woman said, the slightly lifted chin telling him she wasn't pleased with being addressed like that. Her tone dripped scorn when she added: "The army was out stopping demons, allowing troggs and warlocks from the Cleft of Shadow to burn a third of the ships. So now the Horde is relying on mercenaries for a good part of their transport."

With that, the blood elves seemed to decide they had had enough of the conversation, because they quickened their steps. Maurus didn't feel like any more of their company and didn't make any effort to match their pace, allowing them to go on ahead.

"That is some news," Mathias said. Maurus nodded and looked at Arianna, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. She looked up at him, fel fire eyes wide. It was hard to be sure, but he thought her eyes looked a little moist. An orc bumped into Maurus' shoulder and grumbled at him, but Maurus hardly registered the words.

"Our people may be united again," Arianna said. Maurus had to strain to hear it over the noise around them.

"If they are still there," Mathias said bluntly. "If what the orcs say is true, Draenor is practically a stepping stone between where the Burning Legion are and Azeroth." Arianna turned a hard glare on him and Mathias glared back with equal intensity, adding: "Besides, we're on a mission, remember? Unless your word is not as solid as it seemed."

"Watch your tongue," Maurus said lowly. Under his palm, some of the tension seeped out of Arianna's shoulder.

"I will not abandon this mission," she said coldly. "You will just have to excuse my interest in people we feared lost forever."

"As long as it doesn't distract you overmuch from our real objective," Mathias said as Maurus removed his hand from Arianna's shoulder.

"It won't," she said flatly. Then she added, a pleased note seeping into her voice: "In fact, this might be the lead we need."

Mathias immediately gave Arianna his full attention, his gaze eerily intent. "Yes?" he demanded.

"Ratchet has only one thing our quarry might want. Transportation, and we have his likely destination now."

Mathias' gaze grew suspicious. "This isn't just an excuse to go to Outland is it? Because I will be vexed if that is the case."

Maurus sighed. He might have been too hasty when he decided that his two companions didn't hold some resentment for each other. Then again, Maurus could see why Mathias was so volatile about his quest for vengeance and the days in the sun didn't seem to become either of them.  _'Soft westerlings,'_ he thought, before shaking off the thought. They had been anything but soft during their trials in Ashenvale.

"It's no excuse," Arianna said. "If he is traveling by ship, it explains why the trail grew cold. The ocean disrupts my magic far better than distance. And he just threw away his army to impede the war effort; he would want to return to his masters."

"If you are wrong, we will be going a thousand leagues in the wrong direction," Maurus said hesitantly. He did have faith in her, but this was a huge gamble.

"I'm certain," Arianna said. There was no doubt in the look she gave him, but the seriousness vanished almost immediately when she shrugged and added, voice deceptively nonchalant as she echoed Maurus' earlier thoughts: "It's either that or scouring this continent blindly."

Maurus looked at Mathias. "I think this is our best bet."

Mathias was silent for a moment. His posture changed a little, and a stiffness Maurus hadn't really noticed before bled out of Mathias. For the first time since morning, he stopped glowering.

"We check Ratchet for any leads first," he said. "If that turns up nothing, we go overseas."

Maurus nodded. "Agreed."

With that, they descended the slope towards the sprawling, smog-cloaked clutter that was the metropolis of Ratchet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was the final chapter of this one. I know it doesn't give much closure, but that should, eventually, come in the sequel, Chasing Through Hell. I hope you'll like that one. There the shipping slowly takes wing too.
> 
> Please let me know what you think, be it good or bad, of this piece. I love feedback.


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